How did Woodward get Stephanopoulos to speak to him?

July 26, 2011 9:25 AM

Why did George Stephanopoulos choose to speak to Bob Woodward (who was writing the book "The Agenda" at the time)?

I've been reading "All Too Human" by George Stephanopoulos and some of it is confusing to me. For example, it seems like he spoke to Woodward without telling Clinton he was doing so.

What would be the motivation of doing that? Would it be a case of trying to protect one's own name in the face of other people speaking to Woodward about Stephanopoulos?

It just seems like a move that would break trust with Clinton on a fundamental level. Extra bonus points if someone can explain exactly what he did say to Woodward the annoyed the Clintons the most and why they didn't fire him (Steph...) right away.

Thanks!

posted by fantasticninety to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

I think George was leaning towards the more 'liberal' wing of the Clinton confidants and was upset with the way the agenda was going. Also, he just made several bad decisions in terms of betraying the Clintons' trust anyway (including this book!) so maybe that's just part of the way he does things, puts the necessity of expressing a point of view above the concerns of social loyalty.

I think you should also take his book with a grain of salt as with any autobiography and compare it with other insiders' accounts or other books about that administration.
posted by the mad poster! at 9:43 AM on July 26, 2011

Here's a discussion of the book at Slate; they discuss the issue a little in entry 5.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:28 AM on July 26, 2011

Generally speaking, it's usually better to talk than not in these situations. At least that way, he could put a slight spin on circumstances, as well as providing a little CYA for insurance. If he hadn't talked to him, Woodward would have gotten a way worse story somewhere else.
posted by Gilbert at 11:26 AM on July 26, 2011

Thanks for all the great help here. Did the Clintons worry that if they fired him it would look bad in the press and create a sense of weakness within their camp? I.E., did they keep him on to contain him or because he was still more useful than he was painful?
posted by fantasticninety at 11:51 AM on July 26, 2011

Woodward has a reputation for making people look good in his books if they agree to be sources.

He also has a reputation of telling the Official Story, as conventional wisdom has it at the moment his books are published. No one's going to write a book about Alan Greenspan called "Maestro" anymore. And the titles of his first two books about the invasion of Iraq were quite a bit more neutral/impliedly praising of Pres. Bush than the third one, from 2007: "State of Denial."

(Pres. Obama's current WHPC, Jay Carney, had been a centrist opinionator at Time magazine before moving to the WH. It's interesting that Dem presidents can have centrist media people, who are generally hated by the Dem base, as their press team, while Republicans choose folks like Tony Snow from the right-wing paramedia, which is generally well-received by its base).

Stephanopoulos seems to have been playing a longer game than mere loyalty to one guy in the mid-1990s. Mission accomplished-- he's on TV every Sunday morning now! That requires being in with the folks writing the Official Story.
posted by ibmcginty at 1:31 PM on July 26, 2011