Reviews of All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos

Book Summary

In addition to the complex portrait of the President, here are brilliant, nuanced sketches of all the key players.

"So this is it. This is how the big guys talk to each other. I'd been behind my share of closed doors on Capitol Hill, but this was different -- more self-conscious, almost cinematic, as if everyone was aware of playing a part in a drama that was being written as they spoke. This was the classic smoke-filled room, minus the smoke. I watched and listened and tried to look cool, too dumbstruck to say a sensible word and half-convinced that somebody would look up any minute and say, 'Hey, what are you doing here?' "

For four years in the White House and one year of campaigning before that, George Stephanopoulos was rarely more than a few steps from Bill Clinton. As the President's Senior Adviser, he saw it all - the endless arguments, the back hall scheming, the protracted decisions, the last minute flip flops that somehow produced real accomplishments, but also set in motion an almost tragic series of events that placed the fate of the President in the hands of the Senate. Now, with the natural ease of a born storyteller and the sensitive eye for fine detail of a novelist, Stephanopoulos tells an extraordinarily gripping story of human foible and frailty in high places that is destined to be one of the great political memoirs of our times.

When Stephanopoulos first met Bill Clinton in September of 1991, he was 30, and like so many others before and since, he was dazzled by the brilliance, charisma, lofty ambitions and astonishing empathy of this remarkably gifted man. Here was the perfect star for an ambitious young man to hitch himself to, yet little did he anticipate what an amazing roller coaster ride it would be - both for the administration and for Stephanopoulos. Throughout the chaos and camaraderie, the breathtaking triumphs and disasters, Stephanopoulos clung to the vision of what a Clinton Presidency could be, even as he began to see the hidden, dark compartments in the man that would bring him and the nation to such grief.

In addition to the complex portrait of the President, here are brilliant, nuanced sketches of all the key players, including Al Gore, Dick Morris, and Hillary Clinton, whose combative, litigator instincts were, sadly, behind many of her husband's missteps. Here too is a candid, sometimes merciless, self-portrait of the author, whose drives, vanities, and insecurities, along with everyone else's, peppered the playing field of the biggest game in town. All Too Human is a book for the ages.