All Too Human: A Political Education by George Stephanopoulos

All Too Human is a new-generation political memoir, written from the refreshing perspective of one who got his hands on the levers of awesome power at an early age. At thirty, the author was at Bill Clinton's side during the presidential campaign of 1992, & for the next five years he was rarely more than a step away from the president & his other advisers at every important moment of the first term. What Liar's Poker did to Wall Street, this book will do to politics. It is an irreverent & intimate portrait of how the nation's weighty business is conducted by people whose egos & idiosyncrasies are no sturdier than anyone else's. Including sharp portraits of the Clintons, Al Gore, Dick Morris, Colin Powell, & scores of others, as well as candid & revelatory accounts of the famous debacles & triumphs of an administration that constantly went over the top, All Too Human is, like its author, a brilliant combination of pragmatic insight & idealism. It is destined to be the most important & enduring book to come out of the Clinton administration. Editorial Reviews [Stephanopoulos] tells his calculated story well, with a novelist's flair for sketching scenes and characters. - New York Magazine - Walter Kirn In his self-flagellating self-promotion - a way of climbing on his knees - Stephanopoulos regrets that his vanity at times made it harder for him to advance his sound views. - The New York Times Book Review - Garry Wills Mostly this is welcome confession, and not just because it has the benefit of sounding sincere. The reflective, honest tone makes this book essential for anyone trying to understand life inside big-time politics. It's free of the too-tidy anecdotes that clog most political memoirs. The stories ring real, and they're well rendered. - New York Observer - Jonathan Alter ...Stephanopoulos is admirably blunt....But he lacks skepticism about the class of permanent, pompous Washingtonians he has now joined in all but his address. - Fortune ...[C]andid and highly readable....a far cry from the devastating indictments of previous administrations offered by other insiders....fueled less by any score-settling agenda than by an insider's preoccupation with process and a natural storyteller's fondness for vivid characters and anecdotes... -The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani ...[T]he most gripping tale of a man's successful battle against his conscience since Albert Speer's cliffhanger Inside the Third Reich....[T]he real tragedy of Stephanopoulos' book [:] He is unhappy in his own skin....He should be very proud of his abilities. Instead, he aspires to a sainthood that he will never reach. -National Review - Dick Morris National fame came early to Stephanopoulos, who by age 31 was President Clintons first director of communications until he was promoted to the vaguely defined, vulnerable position of senior advisor. He views Clinton as the best politician he has ever known, who could have accomplished much more if he were a better person. First Lady Hillary Clinton is portrayed as fiercely loyal and at times inflexible and ambitious. Ultimately, Stephanopolous fell out of favor for being a traditional liberal in an administration that increasingly believed that the era of big government was dead and also because he was a reputed news leaker, a charge he denies. The strengths of the book are also its weaknesses. An engaging, self-deprecating style, similar to that of Robert Reich, Clintons first secretary of labor (Locked in the Cabinet, LJ 4/1/97), is marred by an overabundance of italicized comments representing rejoinders that could have been used with devastating effect in confrontations but werent. A forthright honesty about his own faults dissolves into self-pity during an extended section on his fights with his major political foe, Dick Morris, the pollster who was brought on board to improve Clintons image but departed when his telephone antics with a prostitute were discovered. Stephanopoulos resigned at the end of the first term and recently condemned the Lewinsky affair as Clintons abandonment of presidential policies and more than a few trusted advisors in order to save himself. Overall, a fascinating if controversial insiders account of life inside the Clinton pressure cooker administration during its early years. A required purchase for public libraries.Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA - Library Journal ...[A]s a knowing, slightly cynical treatise on modern politics, All Too Human really hums....a classic morality tale. - People Magazine - Alex Tresniowski No doubt anecdotally significant to historians, the book for present-day news junkies will be interesting reading....[C]onveys a lukewarm scolding to a gifted and idealistic President whom Stephanopoulos believes wasted a golden opportunity. - The Christian Science Monitor - James N. Thurman Stephanopoulos's account of White House misadventures is just as self-serving as [Monica's Story], but his book, while much better written, is a little harder to take....[D]id Stephanopoulos betray the President by writing this book? There is certainly something distasteful about the whole project. - The New Republic - Katha Pollitt ...[A]t least we now have what all those subpoenas couldn't unearth: George Stephanopoulos's memories of life with Bill Clinton. Whether we have the real story is another question altogether....[W]hen I worked for Clinton I had been willing to suspend my disbelief about some of his more suspect denials, [he writes]. Perhaps the most astonishing thing...is that Stephanopoulos apparently expects us to believe that. - The American Spectator - Byron York The book may not tell us anything wholly new about the Clinton presidency, but it does...[add] authoritative emphases that could come only from one who saw it up close....For...what [it reveals] of the abysses to which the American political class has sunk, we owe a small measure of debt to George Stephanopoulos's...confessions. - Commentary - Gabriel Schoenfeld This is a political junkie's dream come true, an insider's account of the Clinton Administration's first five years. Narrator Jeff Woodman has a clear, expressive voice that decisively captures the author's emotions. If he just read the book straight, it would be most enjoyable. But Woodman has made two problematic choices. The first is that he attempts to sound too much like the author, but he puts too much swagger and cockiness in his delivery. The second is his attempt at characters. None of them sound like the person he's trying to imitate, with Clinton being a notable mistake. Still, the book is an interesting read. R.I.G. AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine - JUN/JUL 00 - AudioFile