Karl Rove is out touting his forthcoming memoir. He was on Fox News Channel today--naturally--showing off the cover, and he's promoting the volume to his million-plus Twitter followers.
I'm not unbiased about Rove. My conversation with him was a major part of the CIA leak case, and he came close to a perjury charge over his conversations with me. He also released me from a pledge of confidentiality that allowed me to avoid being sent to prison for contempt of court. I've questioned his candor on TV. So I look forward to the book with some personal interest. His editor at Simon & Schuster, Priscilla Painton, was the Time magazine editor of the piece I co-wrote that caused all the drama in the first place. As my colleague Josh Green has chronicled, I don't think the Rovian style of politics is good for America, but I bet the book will be interesting.
Leaving that aside, I'm amazed, though, by the self-aggrandizing title: Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.
First, it's an alliterative clunker, heavy on the Cs. But who uses
courage in their own memoirs? John F. Kennedy famously wrote--or had
written for him--Profiles in Courage, about other people. John McCain called his memoir Faith of my Fathers, not I'm So Brave.
Not really sure a direct mail guy turned political consultant turned
top White House adviser should call himself courageous. If he was
advising a client, wouldn't he have other people describe him that way?
To do it yourself seems grandiose in the extreme. A more subdued tile
might be Heart of a Patriot. Oh, wait, that's already the title
of another Simon & Schuster book, this one by former Senator Max
Cleland, who lost reelection after ads attacked the Vietnam Vet, who
lost three limbs in Southeast Asia, for being weak on terror. The
subtitle of his book? How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove.
He should have gone with: Turdblossom: Born From Bullsh*t.
I guess "I'm a douchebag" was too on-the-nose.
Hilarious. After Rove's career of provable mendacity, sophism, and political savagery Cooper NOW expects him to be honest and forthright about a book title! I guess hope really does spring eternal. I guarantee the book will be dishonest , vicious, and an exercise in selectivity. The most interesting parts of his career will be necessarily excluded and the included stuff will be uninteresting, yet as grandiose as the vapid title.
It was originally Boorish Incontinence, but some editorial assistant misheard it.
I'm liking "Escaping Consequence: My life as a Handmaiden to Satan"
This title is about as truthful and in touch with reality as his "I've got The Math, Robert" statement just prior to the 2006 elections, where, ahem, Karl didn't have The Votes or The Math.
I tend to agree: Turdblossom really really really shouldn't use "courageous" in the title.
Mr. Cooper - Ask and you shall recieve. Mr. Rove is not the only Republican (I hesitate to refer to him as a conservative) to slap Courage on his memoirs - James Watt did in his, "The Courage of a Conservative." And the answer is yes, I do have a copy.
Karl Rove: No Shame
My candidate would be "Why the Fat Boys are So Mean"....oh sorry, Limbaugh already has that one covered.
It's easy to make fun of Rove, as it is of any full time political operative who rises to the type of the pile, of either party. I mean, David Plouffe's winning ways are no less audacious, except Rove waited until he was out of the White House while Plouffe is still influencing (wrong-headed) policy.
Progressives despise Rove, and for good reason, but suggesting he is stupid, or inaccurately interpreting the swing in public opinion is as short-sighted as the liberal overreach of the current administration.
On balance, I would not have either Rove or Plouffe over for drinks and dinner, but I will read both (and Palin's tabloid, for that matter)because each is like one of the six blind men who touched the elephant and with a part of the truth drew some of the vision -- which still is more than most of us out here in the giant mushroomland can claim.