‘All Too Human’ Insider’S Guide To Clinton

When George Stephanopoulos finished writing his book on President Clinton this month - just weeks before its March 11 release - he celebrated in a way that many might consider at odds with his hip, bachelor image.

He had dinner with mom and dad.

“The galleys were in and he had just finished doing the audio tapes that day,” said Nikki Stephanopoulos of the Feb. 10 dinner that happened to fall on her son’s 38th birthday.

No, she added, he didn’t talk about his highly anticipated Clinton memoir, “All Too Human,” which in the runup to its release date is being treated like a state secret by its publisher, Little, Brown & Co.

Bound copies of the 456-page tome don’t exist yet, Little, Brown officials insisted last week. And Stephanopoulos, who rewrote the entire manuscript in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, is being muzzled by the publisher until the book hits stores.

But friends and family of the author, as well as some of the newly minted commentator’s recent articles, suggest that Stephanopoulos’ book party is one that the President and First Lady won’t be attending.

The memoir is not expected to offer any new Monica-esque bombshells. But in its breadth and detail, it is expected to offer the ultimate insider’s guide to Clinton’s early White House years, as well as a deeply personal account of Stephanopoulos’ evolving disenchantment with Clinton.

“I think anyone who knows George knows that he is very disappointed with Clinton,” said Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and Stephanopoulos’ colleague at ABC’s Sunday roundtable, “This Week.” “I think he was surprised that (Clinton) could behave so badly.”

This is not the trench-fighting Stephanopoulos who rose to fame in 1992 as Clinton’s loyal spinmeister. This Stephanopoulos, friends say, is the son and grandson of Greek Orthodox priests, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal whose older sister is a nun who runs a school in Jerusalem for Arab girls.

“The sense of family, the sense of values and commitment - that’s all really strong in George,” said fellow ABC commentator Cokie Roberts. “I think a lot of people don’t know that. But that’s the core of the man, and that person gets disappointed and offended.”

Not that Stephanopoulos is a choirboy. To many Democratic stalwarts, Stephanopoulos is the ultimate Judas, a traitor who parlayed his friendship with Clinton into his book - for which he received a stunning $2.85 million advance - and his job as a political commentator for ABC. He also writes a column for Newsweek, which will excerpt “All Too Human” on Monday.

James Carville, Stephanopoulos’ sidekick during Clinton’s 1992 campaign, went so far last week as to suggest that he may not even read “All Too Human.”

“I’ll probably just check the index to see what he said about me,” Carville joked.

Other than Paul Begala, a special adviser to the president who announced last week that he was leaving the White House, Stephanopoulos is thought to have few good friends left in Clinton’s inner circle.

Asked about Stephanopoulos’ reputation as a political commentator, for instance, one source close to the administration quipped: “There was a Czech author who wrote a book called `The Unbearable Lightness of Being.’ That’s how I would describe it.”

The truth is that Stephanopoulos was among the first network commentators to use the word “impeachment,” on the day the Lewinsky story broke, and he was right.

“George legitimized the use of the word by others,” said one Washington newsman and Stephanopoulos friend.

Soon thereafter, in fact, Stephanopoulos decided that he had to part ways with ghostwriter William Novak and write “All Too Human” himself.

He put off his unsalaried job at Columbia University, where he was scheduled to teach a course this spring titled “Presidential Campaign Promises and Presidential Action,” and holed up in his $550,000, Ralph Lauren-designed apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan to write.

The result is said to be a much darker, more complicated portrait of Clinton’s deceptions, from his past affairs to his erstwhile draft notice, as well as Stephanopoulos’ own complicity in disseminating those half-truths.