Paper Backtime: Oh What Could Have Been

Today Barack Obama took the Oath of Office for his second term as President. It made me think of what the last 4 years could have been in an alternate universe. And in that time, there is no book I enjoyed more than Andrew Young's account of life in the service of John Edwards.

Young isn't a great writer or particularly funny. But the chronological narrative is well-structured, the details are incredible, and the story is unbelievably believable. It is one part political insider and one part spy novel. The documentation of the trouble and expense of the Rielle Hunter cover-up is truly mind-blowing.

The campaign fraud case of The United States versus John Edwards ended in a mistrial this past May. How dare the feds spend our tax money on a case against the slickest lawyer around?

It was a bad federal case on its general merits - meaning it could be argued out of. Most of the legwork is the result of this book, so Andrew Young is seen as an opportunist. He's a political operative, which automatically makes him a morally flexible money grubber. But that doesn't mean he's lying.

A Senator's right-hand man probably makes about $120K, plus political graft: a handful of free tennis lessons for your daughter, prime Redskins seats a couple of times a year, etc. So were there angles that Young played in the aftermath of the Edwards "affair" for financial gain? Yes of course, but he would likely make his own case that his family earned it.

It was Edwards whose narcissism made Young part of the public eye in the first place, when he coerced him into claiming paternity during Hunter's pregnancy. Young went along with it as his career had become co-dependant with Edwards. And once it got started and all the lies started snowballing it was too late to extricate himself. It was sort of like the Manti Te'o situation, only it really happened.

Young was starry-eyed when he went to work for a prolific trial-lawyer turned wonder boy US Senator. He and his family were sucked in by the potential of being inner-circle power players as Edwards ran for Vice President in '04 and then for top dog in '08. But Edwards was sucked in as well.

Edwards came from humble beginnings, the "son of a mill worker," he grew up with a silver tongue in the courtroom and aged very handsomely despite the death of his teenage son. And despite being puppeteered by another attorney, Elizabeth Edwards.

Young backs up the subject that was broached in Game Change, that Elizabeth manipulated John's entire career, verbally abused him relentlessly, berated the senior staff and used them as personal gophers.

I introduced one of my lawyer friends to this book, and he said there was a reason he never dated a fellow law student.

As Edwards got closer and closer to his presidential run, his wife became more and more impossible, and he wound up seeking comfort in a relationship with another relentless and demanding woman, Rielle Hunter. Young was the one caught in the middle, as he was trusted by all parties concerned. His job ceased to be about the campaign, but the all-encompassing cover-up.

The ride gets really wild once Hunter becomes pregnant, with the cloak-and-dagger operation staying one step ahead of the mainstream media. There were private jets, 5-star hotels, donor mansions, spiritual advisors, and a seemingly endless stream of improper campaign funds used to pay for it all.

Young at this point must have known this was going to explode. So as a political person, he had covered his ass. He took unbelievably detailed notes, saved e-mails and voicemails (the nastiest ones were from Elizabeth), and saw the opportunity to write a book.

And as stated earlier, Young does nothing for added dramatic effect. The events themselves, the transcriptions of the messages, and the funneling of the money, are all dramatic enough.

Hunter wrote a book as well, What Really Happened, released this past May. But it's not on my to-do list. She seemed just as narcissistic as Edwards, and she seemed mostly unsympathetic throughout the read. Plus she's very new-agey and while I enjoy yoga and meditation as much as the next guy, it doesn't promise anywhere near what Young achieved here.

Now the whole sketchy mess is over, the trial is over, the Edwards/Hunter sex tape has been destroyed, and everyone has told their story. Andrew and Cheri Young reside with their three children in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hopefully they are living peacefully, comfortably, and normally.

Book vs Movie: Game Change

This post was inspired by Julianne Moore's well-deserved Emmy (and bright yellow thing) Sunday night. I thought she was phenomenal in late-90's classics Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, though she seemed to disappear after taking a run at FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling in Hannibal.

But she came back in a big way in the 2012 HBO Original Film Game Change. Her portrayal of a certain Alaskan half-term governor took us inside the meteoric rise to national cult figure, the hubris that came with it, all wrapped in the mind of crazy.

But now more to the point of this post, the book Game Change wasn't really about Palin. The actual title of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's work is Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.

There are 23 chapters in the book, and Sarah Palin is only the subject of two of them. That's only one more than devoted to John Edwards, who was a factor in the Dem race early on. In fact Palin doesn't even enter the story in person (and only mentioned a couple of times before that) until page 359.

So why did HBO decide to make a film using just a small subsection of the book by the same name?Well, as the long title of the book hints, the story would be way too broad. So why the McCain/Palin angle? The Obama-Hillary heavyweight fight was just as compelling. And the book's ultimate hero is obvious.

In the afterword, the writers state, "And then there is 44. More than any other character, it was Obama who was at the heart of Game Change."

It's probably because Obama's American success story is boring in comparison. Palin went from unkown to unavoidable literally overnight. The American reality mentality now is that anyone can be a star, and when they get there we love to see them torn down, built back up, and torn down again. It's the perpetual story arc.

In fact America has become so attached to the Palin brand, the supply and demand is there for the whole clan to continue to do reality TV for the foreseeable future. The Palins and the American viewers are co-dependants. Thus the telegenics of a TV movie.

The movie seems to check out. The McCain campaign needed a running mate with sizzle to match the heat of Obama, and didn't do their homework on Palin. McCain brain-trusters Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace have backed the story up. Palin's legions feel that she's been scapegoated for the lost 2008 election.

Conventional wisdom is that Palin, though an extremely flawed VP candidate, did not lose the election. Chapter 21 of the book is called "September Surprise" in which McCain totally mishandles the financial crisis of 2008. This is glossed over in the movie.

The focus is on how ill-prepared Palin was for the position she was running for, and ultimately how she changed politics forever. Politicians have always stretched the truth, but the absolute denial of facts plays the country for fools, and the 2012 GOP candidates' seismic-shifting, facts-be-damned narrative wouldn't have been possible without her precedent setting the table. This exchange between Schmidt and Palin sums it up:

Schmidt: [regarding "Troopergate" charges] You can't say you were cleared of all wrongdoing. 

Palin: Why not?
 
Schmidt: Because you weren't. The reports stated that you abused your power; that is the OPPOSITE of being cleared of all wrongdoing. 

Palin: Then why was I told otherwise? 

Schmidt: You weren't told otherwise! 

Palin: And why haven't you released a statement saying that Todd was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party? 

Schmidt: Because that would be untrue! He WAS a member. 

Palin: He checked the WRONG BOX! He registered BY ACCIDENT and rectified the error immediately! 

Schmidt: He was a member for SEVEN YEARS! I'm sorry, Governor, but there is only a few weeks left in this campaign and you have got to stop saying things to the press that are blatantly untrue; that is NOT the kind of campaign that we are running here! 

Schmidt's role in the movie is definitely outsize in the movie compared to the book, but Woody Harrelson's performance is excellent. He goes from nurturing to placating to puppeteering to excoriating the VP candidate.

The movie, as many movies will do to smooth out a story, takes what were likely a dozen meetings among the McCain campaign staff and condensed them into one. That was before Palin's arrival in the movie, and the story seemed incongruous.

I'm pretty sure John McCain never said, "Then find me a woman." And I'm sure Rick Davis (Peter MacNicol) never checked a shopping list of every woman in GOP politics against Google articles and You Tube videos.

McCain (Ed Harris) is the one who is short-sold in the movie. He's actually the most dynamic character in the book. His legendary temper doesn't come out, and his profanities are kept in check.

In the book he's quoted dropping 11 straight F-bombs on poor Cindy after she interrupted him. And his sly humor is invisible as well, "I'm the only one I know who would go to Iraq to get away from it all." In the movie version, McCain comes across less of a maverick and more of a deferential uncle.

Also Todd Palin seems too benign in the film. It is well-documented that he was a man behind the curtain in Alaska, manipulating and peddling influence, not a nerdy dad with puppy dog eyes.

But Julianne Moore steals the show. She doesn't look like Palin as much as Tina Fey or Gina Gershon, but the nuance is uncanny. The speeches, body language, accent, smile are all spot on. After a little while you forget it's a portrayal. The makeup room meltdown before the Katie Couric interview was chilling. Wallace later said it made her "squirm."

I think that people who love the movie and love to hate Palin, might pick up the book and find it's not what they expect. It weaves the tapestry of a 2-year campaign on both sides. The title Game Change actually fits the movie better than the book, even if the movie doesn't have the same mission as the story that spun it.

Paper Backtime: What Are You Reading? It's Classified

When a content junkie takes a 601-day break from blogging, one goes about the hunting and killing of dozens of books. Actual ones with covers, meant for reading when you're sitting in the carpool lane at school or when you're in the upright and locked position awaiting takeoff.

You hope for something memorable and meaningful, but mostly you just hope for a good diversion to turn pages and see what happens next. Nicolle Wallace delivers on the latter.

Wallace was the White House Communications Director under George Bush #43, and her experiences on the grounds ("the acres") shape the world the she's created.

In the first book Eighteen Acres, it's a world with women as President, Chief of Staff, and Secretary of State - in a Republican Administration no less. So while that premise seems unbelievable enough, the Washington environment they live in is very much on the mark.

The political atmosphere is full of power brokers and spin, and the media is just as relentless as the DC heat in an oppressive summer with the faulty White House AC. You can follow the action from the Oval Office to the West Wing to the East Wing to the Situation Room, to the OEOB (Old Executive Office Building), to The Residence...all while running into anxious worker bees and stale M&Ms.

Each story focuses on 3 women, and the administration of President Charlotte Kramer. In my mind's eye, I see Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek Voyager. Anyway, she's all business which eventually leads to The First Husband's affair with TV Reporter Dale Smith. He's able to keep it quiet and since it's not a breach of security, the Secret Service doesn't get in his way.

But when Smith's helicopter is shot down covering a presidential visit in Afghanistan, everything comes to the surface and dissolves the President's marriage. The military fiasco eventually leads to the Secretary of Defense's suicide.

With hope all but lost for re-election, Kramer reaches across the aisle for Democrat running-mate Tara Myers, the popular Attorney General from New York. What Myers lacks in social graces, she makes up in her connection with the electorate. The hotshot VP saves the election, but she is woefully ill-prepared for the position she's ascended too.

That's where It's Classified begins and Wallace really gets some momentum going. And that's where the buzz for this book comes from.

Wallace's experiences with a combustible VP candidate from the McCain-Palin campaign were one of the biggest plot points in the HBO film Game Change, which is sure to be hoarding Emmy awards. In the aftermath of the film, campaign strategist Steve Schmidt and Wallace (now both contributors for MSNBC) topped the enemies' list of the die-hard "Palinistas." There's also reason to believe that the Amazon.com review ratings on the book tanked when Palin's flying monkey army got involved.

That said, It's Classified isn't that great anyway. When VP Myers secretly battles undiagnosed and untreated depression and OCD throughout the book, she gains noticeable weight, and calls in sick constantly. Her uneven behavior is not lost on the national media. When the staff tries to rehabilitate her image with a series of network morning show interviews, she screws it up and the plan implodes.

A few days later when the White House elevates the terror threat level, it is ripped apart as a political stunt to divert from the negative press the VP has caused. Independent Counsel is brought in to investigate. The VP resigns and the President is impeached. But the President and her husband get back together and everyone lives happily ever after, of course.

The Myers character only channels Palin in her craziness. While the author paints her as transcendentally popular, that never really comes across. She also has some level of expertise on legal issues, and generally is a sympathetic figure.

On the whole, the storylines of the two books are pretty good. You get a very plausible inside look of how the sausage is made in the executive branch and how the pressure gets all cooked up in a crisis. And you really feel what the endless days are like for the President and The Senior Staff.

The characters are average. Nobody jumps off the page. Too much time is spent with players inquiring about interpersonal relationships in their circle like The Newsroom or House M.D., only with worse dialogue - if that's even possible.

I'll chalk up the forced humanity to Wallace's own tenure in the White House, where I'm sure real emotional connections were scarce.