ISBN: 9780742555228

Many people, both in the United States and abroad, have asked: How could George W. Bush do it? How could a governor, inexperienced in national politics despite his famous family, lose the… Plus…

Many people, both in the United States and abroad, have asked: How could George W. Bush do it? How could a governor, inexperienced in national politics despite his famous family, lose the popular vote nationally yet win the presidency in the Supreme Court? How, then, could his administration, with no clear mandate, cut taxes and social expenditures, dismantle environmental and antitrust regulation, upend the balance of trade and the dollar''s strength, engorge the national debt by trumping up a war in Iraq_and go on to win the presidency a second time? Several journalists have argued that the answer is Bush''s chief strategist, Karl Rove. While Bill Israel agrees, in Stealing Reality he contends that Karl Rove is the leading practitioner in a longer and more deliberate enterprise, the national impact of which is greater and more enduring than the effects of the Bush administration alone. The Right, with Karl Rove as exemplar, has refined the use of political communication not only to win elections but to ''steal reality,'' in order to shift the American electorate politically and culturally to the right and cement a new political alignment. Bill Israel, Books, Social and Cultural Studies, Stealing Reality: The Rise of the Right, the Fracture of News, the Lessons of Karl Rove Books>Social and Cultural Studies In "Stealing Reality", Bill Israel contends that Karl Rove is the leading practitioner in a long and deliberate enterprise, the national impact of which is greater and more enduring than the effects of the Bush administration alone. The Right, with Karl Rove as exemplar, has refined the use of political communication not only to win elections but to steal reality, in order to shift the American electorate politically and culturally to the right and cement a new political alignment.<