Product Description

Strategery is a term borrowed from a Saturday Night Live skit and self-deprecatingly adopted by the White House for their meetings. White House Correspondent Bill Sammon is borrowing it yet again in his latest account of this unlikely-yet historic-president. It is written with verve and piercing insight by Sammon, who has been granted unprecedented access to President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their most senior advisers. No other journalist has interviewed the president more times than Sammon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216424 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 357 pages

Review
"A most revealing book that captures firsthand Bush’s ‘strategy’ of honesty, decency and doing what he says he’s going to." -- Rush Limbaugh

"Bill Sammon has some of the best sources within the Bush campaign….This book contains a treasure trove of insight." -- James Carville

"The most interesting and readable account to date of the 2004 campaign and the momentous events that have followed it." -- Brit Hume

From the Inside Flap
Every week, President Bush’s top strategists gather in the West Wing office of Karl Rove to plot what they wryly call "strategery." The word was coined by comic Will Ferrell in a Saturday Night Live skit that portrayed George W. Bush as an endearing dimwit. Far from being offended, the president’s men adopted the term as a sort of ironic inside joke. In fact, they laughed all the way to reelection. Strategery is the behind-the-scenes story of that hard-fought election and the tumultuous year that followed. Strategery chronicles the perpetually "misunderestimated" president as he vanquishes John Kerry and then embarks on a breathtakingly audacious second-term agenda. He vows to rein in the judicial activism of a runaway Supreme Court, defeat the "Bush haters" who blame him for Hurricane Katrina, and, in his spare time, end tyranny around the globe. Strategery is a remarkably vivid portrait of the president as he is seldom seen. In one chapter we find him bloodied and flat on his back in the Texas dirt, having tumbled from his beloved mountain bike, now splayed across his chest. In another he single-handedly rescues his own Secret Service agent from a scrum of hostile Chilean bodyguards. In a third we watch Karl Rove being chased from room to room in his own house by a mob of angry protesters who pound on the windows and reduce his terrified family to tears. Strategery is the third installment in a multi-volume set of New York Times bestsellers chronicling this unlikely yet historic presidency, written with verve and piercing insight by Bill Sammon, who has been granted unprecedented access to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and other senior White House officials.

About the Author
Bill Sammon is the senior White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a political analyst for FOX News Channel, and the author of three previous books, all New York Times bestsellers. No other journalist has interviewed the president more times than Sammon. He and his wife, Becky, live outside Washington, D.C., with their five children.

Customer Reviews

Stepping out of the looking glass of the elite media - what actually happened during the 2004 campaign and after
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.

Objective - No: Interesting - Yes
For those who think that because of the title, this book is a diatribe against George Bush, you're in for a surprise. In fact it is quite the opposite, providing a glowing profile of Bush and his advisors, while having little positive, sorry nothing positive, to say about the "mainstream media" and Democrats. For "mainstream media" read, journalists who do not appreciate George Bush.
Despite this lack of objectivity, Strategery is an enjoyable read. James Carvilles' dust jacket comment that the book contains "a treasure trove of insight into how Bush won the 2004 election" is accurate.
Bush lovers will love this book. Bush bashers will hate it. Once one accepts the author's preferences, this is an interesting, completely non-objective look at (whatever your view of "Dubya" in the White House is) a successful politician.

An insightful, informative glimpse into the last 2 years of Bush's presidency
Strategery obviously picks up where Sammons' last book, Misunderestimated, left off, which was basically in the heat of the Democratic primaries. Strategery focuses mainly on the battle for the presidency between Bush and Kerry from May of 2004 to election night. Pretty much everything is covered. From the Swift Boat Veterans to "I actually voted for it before I voted against it," all that happened in the 2004 election is covered well, and in an unbiased fashion. Don't get me wrong, it is no secret that Bill Sammons is a supporter of George W. Bush, but any intelligent reader will recognize that Sammon is still, at heart, a reporter who just wants to get to the truth, it just so happens that the truth is on Bush's side throughout most of the book.

A lot of people probably don't want to relive the last election, but I, since it was the first election I ever voted in, look back on this past election with an extremely high regard. I think that this election was historic, and will be looked at that way in the near future. Honestly, though, it is just really gratifying to read about all the crap that the Democrats and Kerry threw at Bush for 6 straight months, only for Bush to come out on top once again. Whether it was the Abu Grhaib photos, which Sammons covers very honestly, or Memogate, which can be looked back on with pure glee, knowing the fates of Rather and Mapes, you have to admit that the cards were stacked against Bush in 2004, but he somehow pulled it off.

Off the topic of the election, though, the book continues on covering until very recently. The book examines Hurrican Katrina and the recent Supreme Court nominations, as well as a breif look at the CIA leak scandal, and the recent debates on Iraq that involved crazy Cindy Sheehan, or senile Edward Murtha. Quite frankly, if you support Bush, you will love this book. If you hate Bush, don't read the book, it will only make you angry, because I am sure that most people who don't like Bush already have their minds set, and some simple book will not change anyone's mind, it is just night to get somewhat of an insider's glimpse of the Beltway every once in a while. No matter how closely I follow politics, whenever I read a book like this, I always find out some bit of juicy info that you wouldn't know unless you covered the goings on of Washington for a living. It is just a bonus when the author agrees with you politically...