Machiavelli's Shadow: Focusing on Rove and Siegelman

Perhaps the definitive book, so far, on Karl Rove and the U.S. attorneys scandal is being released today.

Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove is written by veteran journalist Paul Alexander.

Chapter 12 should be of particular interest to Alabamians--and anyone else interested in the cause of justice. The title? "The United States vs. Don Siegelman."

Alexander has a big-time track record. He is a former reporter for Time magazine and has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, New York, The Village Voice, and The Guardian. He is the author of Man of the People: The Life of John McCain as well as biographies of Sylvia Plath, J.D. Salinger, and James Dean.

BUZZFLASH has a review and interview here.

Here is the publisher's summary:

Karl Rove has come to personify scorched earth political tactics and merciless, win-at-any-cost trickery. His status as the so-called architect behind Bush’s election victories has elevated him to a mythic kingmaker in the national imagination. Not since Mark Hanna, special assistant to President William McKinley, has someone not elected to public office played such a vital role in the governance of our nation. We know the myth, but who is the man? In Machiavelli's Shadow, the full, unvarnished truth about the mastermind of the Bush administration is revealed as swirling scandals and Karl Rove's diminished power have freed people to speak candidly as never before. Acclaimed author and veteran journalist Paul Alexander tracks Rove's journey from consummate outsider to presidential consigliere, conducting firsthand interviews with A-list sources who have never gone on the record about Rove before now. The result is a gripping, no-holds-barred account of the man whose insistence on politicizing any area on which he has advised the president—from the war in Iraq to domestic issues like Social Security, energy, the environment, and hotly controversial judicial matters—has brought about his own fall from grace and an escalating crisis within the government and the nation.

In an interview with Publisher's Weekly, Alexander had this compelling quote:

"One of the things that I’m doing—because it’s breaking right now and I think it’s going to break through the fall—is to really look at the whole unfolding U.S. Attorney scandal. People look at it and they haven’t quite figured out yet why it’s important," says Alexander. "It’s hugely important in the story of Karl Rove, but it’s also important in the story of the Bush White House, the Bush administration and the way the Bush administration is going to be viewed in history. Because as the full story unfolds, if the congressional committee hearings actually do occur, the public will get to see a side of Karl Rove and the Bush administration that they really haven’t understood was there yet."