George Stephanopoulos

George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
Born	George Robert Stephanopolous (1961-02-10) February 10, 1961 Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Author, Pundit
Spouse(s)	Alexandra Wentworth (November 20, 2001 – present)

George Stephanopoulos (born February 10, 1961) is an American broadcaster and political adviser. He is currently ABC News's Chief Washington Correspondent and the host of ABC's Sunday morning news show This Week. Prior to joining ABC News, he was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later became Clinton's communications director.

He is married to actress Alexandra Wentworth, with whom he has two daughters.

Biography

Early life

George Stephanopoulos was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, and grew up in Purchase, NY and suburban Cleveland, Ohio, the descendant of Greek immigrants. His parents followed the Greek Orthodox faith, and Stephanopoulos, whose father is a Greek Orthodox priest (currently Dean of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in New York), had long considered entering the priesthood himself. However, when he was a freshman at Orange High School, he decided that he would rather pursue a different profession.

Education

Stephanopoulos wrestled competitively in high school, though he was a poor wrestler. He reports being a short, chubby kid, and was very awkward in his high school years. While attending Columbia College, he says he "came into his own." Stephanopoulos received his bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1982, where he was a legendary broadcaster for WKCR Sports. Graduating summa cum laude with a degree in political science, Stephanopoulos was the salutatorian of his class. He returned to his alma mater in 2003, serving as Columbia College's Class Day speaker.

Stephanopoulos' father had always wanted his son to become a lawyer, if not a priest, so he promised his father that he would attend law school eventually. Initially he took a job with a Congressman from Cleveland, and served as an aide in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, his father persistently questioned him as to when he would attend law school, so Stephanopoulos agreed to attend law school if he were not offered a Rhodes Scholarship. Though he had been rejected for the scholarship during his senior year at Columbia, Stephanopoulos was successful in his second attempt.

While at Oxford, Stephanopoulos earned a master's degree in theology at Balliol College on his Rhodes Scholarship. He reported spending much of his time trying to root his political leanings in deeper philosophies that he studied while at Oxford.

In May 2007, Stephanopoulos received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from St. John's University. Though only an honorary degree, its conferral symbolized completion of the law education he promised his parents.

Career

Clinton administration

Stephanopoulos was, along with David Wilhelm and James Carville, a leading member of the 1992 Clinton campaign. His role on the campaign is portrayed in the documentary film The War Room. At the outset of Clinton's presidency, Stephanopoulos served as the de facto press secretary, briefing the press even though Dee Dee Myers was officially the White House Press Secretary. Later, he was moved to Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy, when Dee Dee Myers began personally conducting the briefings and David Gergen was brought in as the new White House Communications Director. The move was largely viewed as a rebuke to Stephanopoulos' handling of public relations during the first six months of the Clinton Administration.

Stephanopoulos resigned from the Clinton administration shortly after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.

On Feb. 25, 1994 George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes had a conference call with Roger Altman to discuss RTC's choice of Republican lawyer Jay Stephens to head the Madison Guaranty investigation, that later turned in to the Whitewater investigation.

During his tenure in the White House, Stephanopoulos was known to arrive at work by 6:00 AM every day.

His 1999 memoir, entitled All Too Human: A Political Education, was published after he left the White House during Clinton's second term. It quickly became a #1 New York Times best seller. In his book, Stephanopoulos spoke of his depression and how his face broke out into hives due to the pressures of conveying the Clinton White House message. Bill Clinton referred to the book in his autobiography, My Life, apologizing for what he felt in retrospect to be excessive demands placed on the young staffer.

George Stephanopoulos is also a member of the Bilderberg Group.

Pundit

After leaving the White House, he became a political analyst for ABC News, as a correspondent on the ABC Sunday talk program This Week, World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and various special broadcasts. In September 2002, Stephanopoulos became host of This Week. In December 2005, ABC News officially named him Chief Washington Correspondent.

Stephanopoulos is currently the anchor of ABC's Sunday morning program, This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

On April 16, 2008, Stephanopoulos became a subject of public controversy after co-moderating the 21st Democratic Presidential debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the 2008 election cycle. Stephanopoulos was joined by colleague Charles Gibson and the event was broadcast live by ABC News from Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both Gibson and Stephanopoulos were chided for focusing most of the first hour of the debate on issues critics regarded as trivial, intentionally incendiary, and slanted toward Republican political views. Obama was challenged, for, among other things, associating with Jeremiah Wright, his pastor, who espouses some positions of Black Theology, and with William Ayers, a supporter of his who had been a member of the Weather Underground during the 1970s. Obama was also challenged for his purportedly conspicuous failure to wear an American flag lapel pin. Clinton was challenged for being perceived as untrustworthy. Both were questioned pointedly and at length about their perceived willingness to raise taxes and restrict gun ownership. Tom Shales wrote in The Washington Post, "For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with." However, the New York Times' David Brooks -- a conservative Republican columnist -- took a different view on the matter: "I understand the complaints, but I thought the questions were excellent. The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities. Almost every question tonight did that." Stephanopoulos defended himself the following day, saying, “The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point." The following day, the Associated Press filed a story saying "ABC News drew both record ratings and a heap of complaints about how Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos moderated the Democratic presidential debate," and "more than 15,600 comments were posted on ABC News' Web site, the tone overwhelmingly negative." In a public opinion poll, the AP found that viewers had given ABC negative ratings by a ratio of 8 to 1.

Stephanopoulos in popular culture

Aaron Sorkin modeled both Michael J. Fox's character Lewis Rothschild in The American President and Rob Lowe's character Sam Seaborn on The West Wing after Stephanopoulos. Fox based his portrayal on Stephanopoulos as well. According to Stephanopoulos, his role in the Clinton administration was more like Bradley Whitford's character Josh Lyman than Seaborn or Rothschild. [1]

Stephanopoulos is also believed to be the model for the character of Henry Burton in Joe Klein's novel Primary Colors. Burton was portrayed in the novel's film adaptation by Adrian Lester.

Stephanopoulos was discussed (but not seen) in the Friends episode "The One with George Stephanopoulos".

References

• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.