All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Two months later, two nights before Clinton's final presidential debate [...] 'The prep went well today,' I said. 'We're ahead of schedule. If you have a solid night Wednesday, the election is over.'"

Wednesday, October 16, 1996. The second presidential debate between Bill Clinton, the incumbent, and Bob Dole, the Republican nominee. My University hosted the debate and I even received a diploma for providing help with the mathematical aspect of the preparations' logistics. Alas, George Stephanopoulos, the author of All Too Human. A Political Education (1999), does not report on the debate itself.

This is the seventh item in my recent series of reads and Goodreads reviews of books on the presidential politics in the US at the end of the 20th century. The links to the reviews of the other six titles are shown at the bottom of this page.

All Too Human is a tale of love for politics, a tale told by an addict of politics. Mr. Stephanopoulos admits that the thing he cherishes perhaps the most is to be where history is made. He writes about his

"[...] desire to inhabit the smallest ring of the inner circle."

About his job at the White House he writes:

"[...] I held a relatively amorphous job that was an amalgam of political troubleshooter, public-relations advisor, policy expert, and crisis manager. [...] So much of the excitement of being a White House aide comes from having the chance to be a witness to history, and to feel like you're making it."

All Too Human is a great read: well-written, engaging, entertaining, highly educational, and it sounds authentically personal.

Several fascinating stories are the focal points of the memoir: preparations for the Clintons 1992 60 Minutes interview, the author's first press conference as the White House communications director, and the absolutely riveting story about selecting a Supreme Court nominee to fill the retiring Justice Byron White's seat. The constantly changing dynamic of the "contest" between Mario Cuomo and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an edge-of-the-seat reading. Readers interested in "scandals" will also get their fill: the Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones affairs are well reported.

However, to me, the most stunning aspect of the memoir is that the last one hundred pages, almost one-fourth of the entire volume, is basically dedicated to the persona of Dick Morris, the author's arch-enemy among Bill Clinton's staff as well as an occasional tactical ally. The author writes:

"[Dick Morris] was the dark buddha whose belly Clinton rubbed in desperate times."

And later:

"From December 1994 through August 1996, Leon Panetta managed the official White House staff, the Joint Chiefs commanded the military, the cabinet administered the government, but no single person more influenced the president of the United States than Dick Morris."

Mr. Morris' role at the White House remains the focus of the story until one of the last pages of the book:

"Panetta took Dick's chair and gave a perfunctory, thirty-second 'Now that Dick is gone...' speech. That was that. I was there. Dick wasn't. I had won. But Man, I thought, this is one cold-blooded business we're in".

I highly recommend this book! The last item in my list below is Mr. Morris' take on the story; it is also a worthwhile read, yet I find it weaker and more biased than Mr. Stephanopoulos' work.

Four stars.

Other books on the US presidential elections and politics that I have recently reviewed on Goodreads:

David Gergen, Eyewitness to Power. The Essence of Leadership from Nixon to Clinton ,
H.R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power,
Lesley Stahl, Reporting Live,
Tom Rosenstiel, Strange Bedfellows.
Bob Woodward, The Choice: How Bill Clinton Won
Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office. Winning the Presidency in the Nineties. .


View all my reviews