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United States News Title: Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media If, like me, you often feel that you have fallen down the rabbit hole when you watch most newscasts or read most big city newspapers, this book will come as a delightful return to reality. It is like stepping out of the looking glass back into a world of normality (not normalcy) and where facts actually do connect and emotion doesn’t prescribe the framework for a desired reality. However, before I understood that the author covers the Whitehouse for the Washington Times, the title had me suspicious that the book was bashing Bush. The phrase, as you probably know, comes from a brilliant SNL sketch of a Presidential debate where Will Ferrell as Bush uses the word “strategery” to describe his presidency. It was a beautiful and funny moment, but did not actually represent Bush. What I did not know, until I read this book, is that Karl Rove uses the word for a weekly meeting of Whitehouse strategists. Bill Sammon captures the story of the Bush Kerry contest for the 2004 election and this covers the first two hundred pages. The author exposes several of the breaches of journalistic ethics to try and steer the election towards Kerry including a scathing behind the scenes telling of the fake Texas National Guard memos that ended up backfiring on Rather, Mapes, and others at CBS. He also shows how CBS sat this story and gave the Whitehouse only a few hours to respond so they could paint things in a worse light. Just as they had with the Abu Ghraib scandal when Rather’s on the air story conflated what the run amok soldiers did with Saddam’s tortures in order to smear Bush, Rumsfeld and our armed forces. Of course, not having learned their lesson and seething with a desire to “get even”, CBS set off a stink bomb late in the campaign with the help of the NY Times. However, the Times jumped the gun on the “stolen arms from a bunker” story and gave truly honest journalists, the Whitehouse, and the military, time to look into the matter and it turned out to be all but nothing. Phhhtt. The book takes us through the post election euphoria, the John Roberts confirmation, and the unreality of the Katrina media coverage where they fulfilled an outlandish prediction by Rush Limbaugh that the left would find a way to blame Bush for the natural disaster. Everything Rush predicted was fulfilled to a bizarre degree. The book ends with the Alito nomination (but doesn’t cover the confirmation hearings) and the realization by some that if Bush’s vision for Iraq actually comes to pass, it will actually change the way people live on this planet. What is quite strange is how some on the left openly desire failure not because success wouldn’t be good, but because their desire for power and control would be thwarted. Of course, this book will be simultaneously attacked by those who have not read it, ignored by as much of the mainstream media that can get away with shutting it down, and the author will be smeared. At least that is what past experience would lead me to believe. I would be thrilled and delighted to be wrong this time. Enjoy! I know I loved the sense of standing on solid ground in a clear world this book gave me. It was a great deal of fun to read about the discomfiture of Rather, Mapes, et al and to read Bush’s words provided in context and treated with the respect they actually deserve.
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