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All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid
Yahoo's national political columnist and the f ormer chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine brilliantly revisits the Gary Hart affair and looks at how it changed forever the intersection of American media and politics.
In 1987, Gary Hart-articulate, dashing, refreshingly progressive-seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination for president and led George H. W. Bush comfortably in the polls. And rumors of marital infidelity, an indelible photo of Hart and a model snapped near a fatefully named yacht ( Monkey Business ), and it all came crashing down in a blaze of flashbulbs, the birth of 24-hour news cycles, tabloid speculation, and late-night farce. Matt Bai shows how the Hart affair marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media-and, by extension, politics itself-when candidates' "character" began to draw more fixation than their political experience. Bai offers a poignant, highly original, and news-making reappraisal of Hart's fall from grace (and overlooked political legacy) as he makes the compelling case that this was the moment when the paradigm shifted-private lives became public, news became entertainment, and politics became the stuff of Page Six.
In 1987, Gary Hart-articulate, dashing, refreshingly progressive-seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination for president and led George H. W. Bush comfortably in the polls. And rumors of marital infidelity, an indelible photo of Hart and a model snapped near a fatefully named yacht ( Monkey Business ), and it all came crashing down in a blaze of flashbulbs, the birth of 24-hour news cycles, tabloid speculation, and late-night farce. Matt Bai shows how the Hart affair marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media-and, by extension, politics itself-when candidates' "character" began to draw more fixation than their political experience. Bai offers a poignant, highly original, and news-making reappraisal of Hart's fall from grace (and overlooked political legacy) as he makes the compelling case that this was the moment when the paradigm shifted-private lives became public, news became entertainment, and politics became the stuff of Page Six.
263 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
98 people are currently reading
2225 people want to read
About the author
Matt Bai
11 books22 followersThis is the place on the site where I answer those often asked questions: "Who do you think you are?" or "Just where do you get off…?"
You can get the official version of my bio here.
For more than seven years, I've written on national politics for the New York Times Magazine. You can access most of my work on the 2004 and 2008 campaigns and other topics here. My work for the magazine was featured in both the 2005 and 2006 editions of "The Best American Political Writing."
I’m also the author of "The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," published by the Penguin Press, which is now in paperback. The book, which took me several years to report and write, is an inside account of the new progressive movement in America and an analysis of the state of Democratic politics in the years before Barack Obama. The New York Times named it one of the best books of 2007.
In 2006, I contributed a personal essay to an anthology called "I Married my Mother-in-Law and Other Tales of In-Laws We Can't Live With—and Can't Live Without." I recommend the anthology, and not just because I'm in it.
I grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut, a nice little town just outside of Bridgeport, the city where both of my parents were born. Those who have ever driven through Bridgeport will understand how I came to care about politics and industrial decay. In fact, I've never lived more than a few miles from a housing project, which probably explains my skepticism toward both Darwinian social policy and the notion that expansive government can fix everything. I went to Tufts and Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, where the faculty generously awarded me the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship.
Early in my career, just out of college, I was a speechwriter for what is now the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where I wrote for the great Audrey Hepburn during her last years. (I’ve still never seen one of her movies, but she was a lovely person.) I started my journalism career at the Boston Globe, where I covered crime and breaking news, and then spent five years traveling the country as a national correspondent for Newsweek, which was a terrific opportunity. (I also did a disastrous little stint at Rolling Stone, which included no articles and a lot of weirdness, but I'm contractually prohibited from talking about that.) There are probably several states in the country from which I still haven’t reported, but I can't easily think of them.
When I’m not traveling, I live a life of domestic tranquility in Washington with my wife, Ellen, and our two small children, Ichiro and Allegra. For hobbies, I enjoy woodworking and mountain climbing. Actually, that's not true at all; I couldn't build a birdhouse, and, after a brutal game of touch football and a whole mess of knee surgery, I can barely climb a Jungle Gym. My main hobby, outside of reading history and fiction, is watching the Yankees. In this arena, at least, I am entirely partisan.
You can get the official version of my bio here.
For more than seven years, I've written on national politics for the New York Times Magazine. You can access most of my work on the 2004 and 2008 campaigns and other topics here. My work for the magazine was featured in both the 2005 and 2006 editions of "The Best American Political Writing."
I’m also the author of "The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," published by the Penguin Press, which is now in paperback. The book, which took me several years to report and write, is an inside account of the new progressive movement in America and an analysis of the state of Democratic politics in the years before Barack Obama. The New York Times named it one of the best books of 2007.
In 2006, I contributed a personal essay to an anthology called "I Married my Mother-in-Law and Other Tales of In-Laws We Can't Live With—and Can't Live Without." I recommend the anthology, and not just because I'm in it.
I grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut, a nice little town just outside of Bridgeport, the city where both of my parents were born. Those who have ever driven through Bridgeport will understand how I came to care about politics and industrial decay. In fact, I've never lived more than a few miles from a housing project, which probably explains my skepticism toward both Darwinian social policy and the notion that expansive government can fix everything. I went to Tufts and Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, where the faculty generously awarded me the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship.
Early in my career, just out of college, I was a speechwriter for what is now the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where I wrote for the great Audrey Hepburn during her last years. (I’ve still never seen one of her movies, but she was a lovely person.) I started my journalism career at the Boston Globe, where I covered crime and breaking news, and then spent five years traveling the country as a national correspondent for Newsweek, which was a terrific opportunity. (I also did a disastrous little stint at Rolling Stone, which included no articles and a lot of weirdness, but I'm contractually prohibited from talking about that.) There are probably several states in the country from which I still haven’t reported, but I can't easily think of them.
When I’m not traveling, I live a life of domestic tranquility in Washington with my wife, Ellen, and our two small children, Ichiro and Allegra. For hobbies, I enjoy woodworking and mountain climbing. Actually, that's not true at all; I couldn't build a birdhouse, and, after a brutal game of touch football and a whole mess of knee surgery, I can barely climb a Jungle Gym. My main hobby, outside of reading history and fiction, is watching the Yankees. In this arena, at least, I am entirely partisan.
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February 19, 2016
Matt Bai's thesis, that the Gary Hart affair of 1987 signaled a new and troubling direction for media and politics all by itself, might appear a bit too tidy, but he makes a very persuasive argument that it completely anesthetized the next generation of gaffe-averse politicians having to walk the cable news/social media gauntlet. The first 3/4 of the book takes us behind the scenes of the week that ended Hart's front-running candidacy for president, and frankly, if you read Bai's piece in The New York Times Magazine, you pretty much read the same thing in condensed form.
The book really gains its value in the final few pages, when Bai ruminates fully on what Hart's fateful boat trip wrought on the coming wave of vapid, soul-despairing political coverage. Whether Hart would have been a good president is beyond my ability to judge, but Bai leaves you fully convinced that his swift implosion and generation-long exile from the political scene --for a "crime" that many would argue had no business being aired publicly -- while other figures who committed far worse transgressions were allowed to redeem and remunerate themselves, is a tragedy of lost public service. And its implications for all of us are chilling.
The book really gains its value in the final few pages, when Bai ruminates fully on what Hart's fateful boat trip wrought on the coming wave of vapid, soul-despairing political coverage. Whether Hart would have been a good president is beyond my ability to judge, but Bai leaves you fully convinced that his swift implosion and generation-long exile from the political scene --for a "crime" that many would argue had no business being aired publicly -- while other figures who committed far worse transgressions were allowed to redeem and remunerate themselves, is a tragedy of lost public service. And its implications for all of us are chilling.
maybe
June 28, 2017Hugh Jackman to play Gary Hart in 'The Frontrunner': The film from Jason Reitman is based on the 2015 book, “All the Truth is Out,” by columnist Matt Bai, about Hart’s political fall from grace. After being considered the frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic nomination, Hart dropped his Oval Office bid amid revelations of an extramarital affair with Donna Rice.
August 8, 2015
With completely brilliant, albeit serendipitous timing, I finished reading Richard Ben Cramer's "What it Takes" when this book arrived. That it starts out with a section entitled "What it Took" and references that book and author Matt Bai's interviews with him made it just a perfect transition.
Bai looks at Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign and the fateful week that ended it as political journalist waded into uncharted waters resulting in the collision of politics and entertainment. (Indeed, he narrows it down to a specific moment when Joe Trippi addresses the press).
Bai calls Hart the "flat-out smartest politician I've met" and cites several important examples of Hart prescience and his ability to "see around corners": the recession long before anyone was talking about it; what a horrible mistake a war in Iraq would be and the longer term repercussions of exacerbating terrorism and stateless extremism.
The general details of that week are well known, course. The Miami Herald, acting on a tip, staked out Hart's DC townhouse and saw Hart enter with a woman not his wife, later to be identified as Donna Rice. As Bai describes it: “the finest political journalists of a generation surrendered all at once to the idea that politics had become another form of celebrity-driven entertainment, while simultaneously disdaining the kind of reporting that such a thirst for entertainment made necessary." Bai recounts how candidates used to think out loud about policy issues, something no candidate could ever do now. Every word, every nuance has to be carefully considered down to taking a drink of water (fascinating anecdote about that).
The book also gives lie to some myths that have been widely accepted as truth. Conventional wisdom is that Hart asked for it, by daring the press to "follow me around...". The truth is, the Miami Herald could not have accepted that dare because it wasn't made until AFTER they had surrounded his home on their almost laughably inept stakeout. The press had become determined to seek out flaws in candidates and expose them
That Hart and Rice both denied an affair seemed inconsequential. By today's standards the whole episode seems almost quaint. And yet, why was Hart thereafter forever sidelined from political life, defined only by that small slice of time in a complex and compelling political career, particularly when compared to what came after: Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, for example?
I liked Bai's follow-up interviews with many of the players in the saga- journalists, staffers, etc. - and found interesting their retrospective views on how it unfolded. The interviews with Hart were also fascinating. I absolutely loved the last chapter.
I was left with a lingering sense of what had been lost, what might have been different for our country if Gary Hart had not been sidelined and been allowed a voice in the national political discussion (even if he didn't win the primary or presidency). Hart is not blameless, and Bai doesn't present him as such, but the bigger issue is that our national obsession with "abject triviality" and treating candidates like Kardashians comes at immense cost to all of us.
The Donald Trump GOP candidacy seems to depressingly confirm Bai's premise: the circus has come to town and most candidates will perform in a carefully calculated act designed to say as little specifically as possible, and many Americans will clap delightedly at the spectacle while breathlessly waiting for the next "scandal", true or not, to the detriment of us all.
Bai looks at Gary Hart's 1988 presidential campaign and the fateful week that ended it as political journalist waded into uncharted waters resulting in the collision of politics and entertainment. (Indeed, he narrows it down to a specific moment when Joe Trippi addresses the press).
Bai calls Hart the "flat-out smartest politician I've met" and cites several important examples of Hart prescience and his ability to "see around corners": the recession long before anyone was talking about it; what a horrible mistake a war in Iraq would be and the longer term repercussions of exacerbating terrorism and stateless extremism.
The general details of that week are well known, course. The Miami Herald, acting on a tip, staked out Hart's DC townhouse and saw Hart enter with a woman not his wife, later to be identified as Donna Rice. As Bai describes it: “the finest political journalists of a generation surrendered all at once to the idea that politics had become another form of celebrity-driven entertainment, while simultaneously disdaining the kind of reporting that such a thirst for entertainment made necessary." Bai recounts how candidates used to think out loud about policy issues, something no candidate could ever do now. Every word, every nuance has to be carefully considered down to taking a drink of water (fascinating anecdote about that).
The book also gives lie to some myths that have been widely accepted as truth. Conventional wisdom is that Hart asked for it, by daring the press to "follow me around...". The truth is, the Miami Herald could not have accepted that dare because it wasn't made until AFTER they had surrounded his home on their almost laughably inept stakeout. The press had become determined to seek out flaws in candidates and expose them
That Hart and Rice both denied an affair seemed inconsequential. By today's standards the whole episode seems almost quaint. And yet, why was Hart thereafter forever sidelined from political life, defined only by that small slice of time in a complex and compelling political career, particularly when compared to what came after: Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, for example?
I liked Bai's follow-up interviews with many of the players in the saga- journalists, staffers, etc. - and found interesting their retrospective views on how it unfolded. The interviews with Hart were also fascinating. I absolutely loved the last chapter.
I was left with a lingering sense of what had been lost, what might have been different for our country if Gary Hart had not been sidelined and been allowed a voice in the national political discussion (even if he didn't win the primary or presidency). Hart is not blameless, and Bai doesn't present him as such, but the bigger issue is that our national obsession with "abject triviality" and treating candidates like Kardashians comes at immense cost to all of us.
The Donald Trump GOP candidacy seems to depressingly confirm Bai's premise: the circus has come to town and most candidates will perform in a carefully calculated act designed to say as little specifically as possible, and many Americans will clap delightedly at the spectacle while breathlessly waiting for the next "scandal", true or not, to the detriment of us all.
November 16, 2014
I don't often read political non-fiction, but "All the Truth Is Out" is a sort of hybrid book using politics to drive forward a larger social observation regarding the relationship between the people who create content and the people who consume it.
I didn't grow up during the Gary Hart era, nor did I know much about it when I picked up the book. This may have helped w/r/t my appreciation/enjoyment of it as I didn't go into the reading expecting some kind of definitive Gary Hart confession (the truth, as it were, is not all out).
The book did take a long, hard look at the man, but always within the context of book's overall goal which seemed to me basically to try and explain how we as a society got ourselves into this crazy situation where Facebook feeds are people's go-to source of new, journalism now manifests as largely indistinguishable from sensationalism, people attempt to define entire political philosophies in 140 characters, politicians run marketing campaigns rather than political ones (or maybe there was never really a difference between the two)...but basically I guess it's about what is supposed to matter when someone takes an objective look at a national figure and what seems nowadays to actually matter.
This, to me, was an important book not because it talked a lot (and often admiringly) about Gary Hart or because it clearly explained / shed new light on a lot of political happenings of the last few decades, but because it urged its readers to take a closer look at today's world and at the leaders fumbling around trying to run it. It necessitated that we absorb information with clarity and awareness and, when that information isn't substantive enough for us to be truly informed, that we demand better from our media and/or make an effort to seek out the information for ourselves.
The book doesn't tell you how to be a better "interpreter of the news", but it does pull back a certain cultural mask to reveal a nation that prefers scandal over substance and does a good job explaining why that's currently the case. It leaves you taking a good, hard look at your own system of beliefs and challenges how you came to form it. At it's essence, it forces you to think about the distinction between what is actually important and what is noise; that there's a profound difference between "the truth being out" and "the Truth".
I didn't grow up during the Gary Hart era, nor did I know much about it when I picked up the book. This may have helped w/r/t my appreciation/enjoyment of it as I didn't go into the reading expecting some kind of definitive Gary Hart confession (the truth, as it were, is not all out).
The book did take a long, hard look at the man, but always within the context of book's overall goal which seemed to me basically to try and explain how we as a society got ourselves into this crazy situation where Facebook feeds are people's go-to source of new, journalism now manifests as largely indistinguishable from sensationalism, people attempt to define entire political philosophies in 140 characters, politicians run marketing campaigns rather than political ones (or maybe there was never really a difference between the two)...but basically I guess it's about what is supposed to matter when someone takes an objective look at a national figure and what seems nowadays to actually matter.
This, to me, was an important book not because it talked a lot (and often admiringly) about Gary Hart or because it clearly explained / shed new light on a lot of political happenings of the last few decades, but because it urged its readers to take a closer look at today's world and at the leaders fumbling around trying to run it. It necessitated that we absorb information with clarity and awareness and, when that information isn't substantive enough for us to be truly informed, that we demand better from our media and/or make an effort to seek out the information for ourselves.
The book doesn't tell you how to be a better "interpreter of the news", but it does pull back a certain cultural mask to reveal a nation that prefers scandal over substance and does a good job explaining why that's currently the case. It leaves you taking a good, hard look at your own system of beliefs and challenges how you came to form it. At it's essence, it forces you to think about the distinction between what is actually important and what is noise; that there's a profound difference between "the truth being out" and "the Truth".
February 7, 2015
If you remember the Gary Hart/Donna Rice/Monkey Business/"follow me around" scandal of 1987, there isn't news here other than some clearing up of confusion in most subsequent accounts/recaps of the exact timeline and sequencing of Miami Herald stakeout vs. publication of the key photo of her sitting on his lap vs. withdrawal from the presidential campaign.......
That the press overemphasizes style, presentation, affability, avoidance of "gaffes", and above all a record free of any evidence of hypocrisy in personal life vs. public policy pronouncements, while underemphasizing policies and governing philosophy is hard to dispute at this point but also not a fresh observation. Author's thesis that it all went downhill with the Hart story is not convincingly argued.
Author swallowed whole Hart's somewhat self-pitying take on the whole thing (why can't I run again, or at least be a respected elder statesman, when Kennedy, Clinton........got away with worse?) and congratulates himself quite a bit for not actually directly asking Hart what really happened with Donna Rice.
My takeaway was that presidential politics and media relations are a lot like other jobs, just on a larger scale. If you mess up royally, but have otherwise cultivated a lot of goodwill along the way and afterward apologize and try to make amends, you'll probably be ok at least eventually (cf. Hart's contemporary Joe Biden's trip from laughingstock plagiarizing someone else's riventing family history to admired Vice President). If you have been aloof and contemptuous and afterward blame the press and clam up, good luck.
That the press overemphasizes style, presentation, affability, avoidance of "gaffes", and above all a record free of any evidence of hypocrisy in personal life vs. public policy pronouncements, while underemphasizing policies and governing philosophy is hard to dispute at this point but also not a fresh observation. Author's thesis that it all went downhill with the Hart story is not convincingly argued.
Author swallowed whole Hart's somewhat self-pitying take on the whole thing (why can't I run again, or at least be a respected elder statesman, when Kennedy, Clinton........got away with worse?) and congratulates himself quite a bit for not actually directly asking Hart what really happened with Donna Rice.
My takeaway was that presidential politics and media relations are a lot like other jobs, just on a larger scale. If you mess up royally, but have otherwise cultivated a lot of goodwill along the way and afterward apologize and try to make amends, you'll probably be ok at least eventually (cf. Hart's contemporary Joe Biden's trip from laughingstock plagiarizing someone else's riventing family history to admired Vice President). If you have been aloof and contemptuous and afterward blame the press and clam up, good luck.
September 6, 2019
Note: technically I read the movie tie-in edition retitled "The Frontrunner," featuring Hugh Jackman on the back cover, just in case the presence of Wolverine in a wig has an impact on my reading experience.
Wow, what an okay book. If only there were superlatives for middle-of-the-road performances. This book, more than being about Hart or the 1988 Election, was about Bai's musings on political journalism. And fawning over Gary Hart, which I guess is fine. Bai's circa-2014 thoughts would have felt fragile at the time, but seen in the post-2016, mid-dumpster fire hindsight of 2019, they appear well and cracked. The thoughts that hold up the best are the least original, such as "wow celebrity and tabloid journalism has penetrated *politics*"
Wow, what an okay book. If only there were superlatives for middle-of-the-road performances. This book, more than being about Hart or the 1988 Election, was about Bai's musings on political journalism. And fawning over Gary Hart, which I guess is fine. Bai's circa-2014 thoughts would have felt fragile at the time, but seen in the post-2016, mid-dumpster fire hindsight of 2019, they appear well and cracked. The thoughts that hold up the best are the least original, such as "wow celebrity and tabloid journalism has penetrated *politics*"
December 15, 2025
The Front Runner, based on the book by Matt Bai
9 out of 10
For this cinephile, The Front Runner is much better Oscar material than both Black Panther and A Star is Born.
The performances are solid, excellent all around, with everyone in better form than the singer who used to wear dresses made of meat and is now the "revelation" of the acting world...
Give me a break.
The Front Runner is not just telling us a very interesting story, raising questions about ethics, the standard that politicians should use, private versus public life, morals and more.
It is a fantastic motion picture in that it invites comparison with the present and the awful
, incredible behavior of a candidate that now sits in the White House, in spite of his abject acts.
Hugh Jackman - not one of my favorite actors - gives a remarkable performance- better than Bradley Cooper in the Star is Born - in the role of Gary Hart aka The Front Runner.
The Senator is the favorite to win the elections in 1988.
He certainly had a different stature from Trump, an intellect that would make him Aristotle and the sitting president a boy of seven - anyway, he frequently acts like one.
Many, if not most viewers will look at the film and wonder how is it possible to experience such a downfall.
To have the choice in 1988 to elect a man with a vision, brilliant mind, courage, intellect, knowledge, experience in office and then almost thirty years later to descend to making a buffoon the leader of the free world.
It is even more incredible when we consider the change in attitudes.
There is suspicion that the candidate has an affair and when he says that the public is not interested- a fact seemingly confirmed by opinion polls - his advisers protest.
One of them states that this is not the seventies and attitudes have changed.
In other words, the flower power culture, the relaxed hippy attitude towards sex and other factors have changed.
People in America are less tolerant in 1988.
How about in 2016 then?
Is it possible to elect such a narcissistic, abusive sexist who brags about grabbing pussies and walking into rooms where teenagers are undressed at pageants that he controls?
The appalling answer is evident on the cable news, where he shows almost daily with another insult, abuse, calamitous lie, indecent proposal...the smartest mani America...
In contrast, The Front Runner of this film is a luminary, an Einstein and an absolute ascetic figure.
No matter what he did or didn't in the room with the attractive woman.
The press gets hold of the information and sets On catching the candidate, if possible in the act.
They are encouraged by the fact that Senator Hart has said in an interview that if the journalist does not believe him, he should follow him around.
The photographer brought in front of the house is able to take some compromising pictures.
Nevertheless, the candidate feels this is the private realm and it is not the business of the press, indeed of anybody, what he does in his bedroom.
If we take this ironically, in an absurd manner, Gary Hart was vindicated in 2016, when Trump won, after manifesting a disgraceful lack of character, respect for women and his voters could not care less.
In his own words...
Trump could shoot someone and his base would still support him...
Bill Maher was joking on his show...
"What does he have to do? Use the Eternal Flame to light farts?" For his voters to see him for what he is?
Having said all this, Gary Hart was not an Angel.
Well, only if we compare him with Orange Satan, elected by evangelicals no less.
He should have applied a different moral standard.
His wife tells him she thinks she would divorce him at a later stage, after his infidelity becomes public.
Perhaps paradoxically, they are still married, after all those years.
Their daughter is exposed to the scandal.
Their home is surrounded by a multitude of television trucks, reporters, satellite installations and all these people create a mountain of garbage.
The daughter has to leave the house in the back of the car of an employee, hidden under a blanket, like a criminal.
The demands on The Front Runner should have been great.
He could have become the president, with a flawed, wicked character.
The problem is that many years later, instead of progress, the once Greatest Democracy in the World became a lamentable case study of ridiculous, catastrophic results...
Trump against Gary Hart is like Stalin compared with Churchill.
Yes, the latter had many important flaws - to mention just one, he thought India should remain a part of the British Empire - but he was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.
9 out of 10
For this cinephile, The Front Runner is much better Oscar material than both Black Panther and A Star is Born.
The performances are solid, excellent all around, with everyone in better form than the singer who used to wear dresses made of meat and is now the "revelation" of the acting world...
Give me a break.
The Front Runner is not just telling us a very interesting story, raising questions about ethics, the standard that politicians should use, private versus public life, morals and more.
It is a fantastic motion picture in that it invites comparison with the present and the awful
, incredible behavior of a candidate that now sits in the White House, in spite of his abject acts.
Hugh Jackman - not one of my favorite actors - gives a remarkable performance- better than Bradley Cooper in the Star is Born - in the role of Gary Hart aka The Front Runner.
The Senator is the favorite to win the elections in 1988.
He certainly had a different stature from Trump, an intellect that would make him Aristotle and the sitting president a boy of seven - anyway, he frequently acts like one.
Many, if not most viewers will look at the film and wonder how is it possible to experience such a downfall.
To have the choice in 1988 to elect a man with a vision, brilliant mind, courage, intellect, knowledge, experience in office and then almost thirty years later to descend to making a buffoon the leader of the free world.
It is even more incredible when we consider the change in attitudes.
There is suspicion that the candidate has an affair and when he says that the public is not interested- a fact seemingly confirmed by opinion polls - his advisers protest.
One of them states that this is not the seventies and attitudes have changed.
In other words, the flower power culture, the relaxed hippy attitude towards sex and other factors have changed.
People in America are less tolerant in 1988.
How about in 2016 then?
Is it possible to elect such a narcissistic, abusive sexist who brags about grabbing pussies and walking into rooms where teenagers are undressed at pageants that he controls?
The appalling answer is evident on the cable news, where he shows almost daily with another insult, abuse, calamitous lie, indecent proposal...the smartest mani America...
In contrast, The Front Runner of this film is a luminary, an Einstein and an absolute ascetic figure.
No matter what he did or didn't in the room with the attractive woman.
The press gets hold of the information and sets On catching the candidate, if possible in the act.
They are encouraged by the fact that Senator Hart has said in an interview that if the journalist does not believe him, he should follow him around.
The photographer brought in front of the house is able to take some compromising pictures.
Nevertheless, the candidate feels this is the private realm and it is not the business of the press, indeed of anybody, what he does in his bedroom.
If we take this ironically, in an absurd manner, Gary Hart was vindicated in 2016, when Trump won, after manifesting a disgraceful lack of character, respect for women and his voters could not care less.
In his own words...
Trump could shoot someone and his base would still support him...
Bill Maher was joking on his show...
"What does he have to do? Use the Eternal Flame to light farts?" For his voters to see him for what he is?
Having said all this, Gary Hart was not an Angel.
Well, only if we compare him with Orange Satan, elected by evangelicals no less.
He should have applied a different moral standard.
His wife tells him she thinks she would divorce him at a later stage, after his infidelity becomes public.
Perhaps paradoxically, they are still married, after all those years.
Their daughter is exposed to the scandal.
Their home is surrounded by a multitude of television trucks, reporters, satellite installations and all these people create a mountain of garbage.
The daughter has to leave the house in the back of the car of an employee, hidden under a blanket, like a criminal.
The demands on The Front Runner should have been great.
He could have become the president, with a flawed, wicked character.
The problem is that many years later, instead of progress, the once Greatest Democracy in the World became a lamentable case study of ridiculous, catastrophic results...
Trump against Gary Hart is like Stalin compared with Churchill.
Yes, the latter had many important flaws - to mention just one, he thought India should remain a part of the British Empire - but he was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.
January 15, 2015
I was starting high school when Gary Hart ran for president in 1987. I don't remember much about it. But I was very interested in the author's thesis that this was the moment when news started to become infotainment and stopped being particularly helpful to citizens. The import of moments like this are often only apparent in retrospect. I'm sure no one at the time foresaw how the Monkey Business scandal was going to affect politics. Sure, people figured that it would have an affect, but most people wrongly assumed that it meant that politicians with any skeletons in their closets, particularly of a sexual nature, could never run for office ever again (hello, Bill Clinton!)
Instead, Bai comes to the conclusion that the big change in this moment was that we stopped considering the substance of the politician and only considered their character. In fact he compares Barack Obama's lack of much political experience to Sarah Palin's (although he acknowledges that the similarity ends there.) The lack of substance is a scary thing (hello Palin!) and he believes the strength of character bit is overplayed. I agree on the first point but not on the second. In fact, he doesn't seem to believe it himself, ending the book by pointing out that Hart could have reentered politics numerous times, had he only changed his story and apologized. Instead, he stood by his story and never faltered (that nothing sexual happened with Donna Rice), despite the harm that caused to his career and aspirations, and Bai calls that evidence of good character. I agree, but if Bai's just been telling us for hundreds of pages how insignificant the whole "character" thing is in politics, then why in the end approve of Hart's character? It's true that other politicians who were serial cheaters (F. Roosevelt, Kennedy) did great things politically, and politicians who did reprehensible things (T. Kennedy) went to to achieve much in the world of politics, but just as Bai argues that a slip-up in one's personal life shouldn't end one's political aspirations, the obverse is also true. Just because a person does good things for the country doesn't mean they're not an awful person (Nixon). But Bai seems to yearn for the pre-Hart days when journalists winked at politician's sexual dalliances and other personal problems and wrote lengthy, thought-out pieces about international world views and the like. That ship has sailed. And not entirely for the worse. Bai admits that not much dirt was ever found on Obama, and that some personal problems are indicative of issues the politician has with decision-making, risk-taking, and prioritizing. Yet he yearns nonetheless.
This was a fascinating analysis and look back, but I for one am glad we no longer live in a time when politicians can do horrible things and journalists look the other way. Yes, personal lives are fair game now, and you don't have to think it's fair, but I do. Yes, we might never have another introverted president, and that is a shame, but I think that overall, the greater transparency works out. While on the one hand, I don't really care who a president is screwing (if his wife doesn't care) so long as he isn't the screwing the country, on the other hand I do want to know he is screwing around and have the choice on election day to make that call. Some relationships are complicated (helloooooo Clintons!) and that's their business, but the rest of us have a right to know as much as is reasonable (and I argue that decisions made at home are indicative of decision-making in the office, and therefore are fair game) when we decide who to elect.
Instead, Bai comes to the conclusion that the big change in this moment was that we stopped considering the substance of the politician and only considered their character. In fact he compares Barack Obama's lack of much political experience to Sarah Palin's (although he acknowledges that the similarity ends there.) The lack of substance is a scary thing (hello Palin!) and he believes the strength of character bit is overplayed. I agree on the first point but not on the second. In fact, he doesn't seem to believe it himself, ending the book by pointing out that Hart could have reentered politics numerous times, had he only changed his story and apologized. Instead, he stood by his story and never faltered (that nothing sexual happened with Donna Rice), despite the harm that caused to his career and aspirations, and Bai calls that evidence of good character. I agree, but if Bai's just been telling us for hundreds of pages how insignificant the whole "character" thing is in politics, then why in the end approve of Hart's character? It's true that other politicians who were serial cheaters (F. Roosevelt, Kennedy) did great things politically, and politicians who did reprehensible things (T. Kennedy) went to to achieve much in the world of politics, but just as Bai argues that a slip-up in one's personal life shouldn't end one's political aspirations, the obverse is also true. Just because a person does good things for the country doesn't mean they're not an awful person (Nixon). But Bai seems to yearn for the pre-Hart days when journalists winked at politician's sexual dalliances and other personal problems and wrote lengthy, thought-out pieces about international world views and the like. That ship has sailed. And not entirely for the worse. Bai admits that not much dirt was ever found on Obama, and that some personal problems are indicative of issues the politician has with decision-making, risk-taking, and prioritizing. Yet he yearns nonetheless.
This was a fascinating analysis and look back, but I for one am glad we no longer live in a time when politicians can do horrible things and journalists look the other way. Yes, personal lives are fair game now, and you don't have to think it's fair, but I do. Yes, we might never have another introverted president, and that is a shame, but I think that overall, the greater transparency works out. While on the one hand, I don't really care who a president is screwing (if his wife doesn't care) so long as he isn't the screwing the country, on the other hand I do want to know he is screwing around and have the choice on election day to make that call. Some relationships are complicated (helloooooo Clintons!) and that's their business, but the rest of us have a right to know as much as is reasonable (and I argue that decisions made at home are indicative of decision-making in the office, and therefore are fair game) when we decide who to elect.
December 4, 2016
All the Truth is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai is a fascinating read. The book focuses on Gary Hart’s public scandal, which became a precedent for future political representatives having their lives on display for the public. Having Hart’s personal life and public persona both come under scrutiny by the media and, in turn, the American public, offered a hybridization of entertainment, news, and solicitous intrigue. Today, we have TMZ and everyday citizens tweeting pictures and locations of political leaders, ignoring the line of public versus private. The Gary Hart scandal helped make this transition possible.
In today’s society, the everyday citizen can simply take out their phone and Google someone. If there has ever been a scandalous moment in that person’s life, the documentation will be easily accessible, making it impossible for an issue to simply be forgotten.The Gary Hart scandal was the turning point for combining public and private lives. Hart gave the media the challenge to find anything troublesome about his life. Unfortunately, for him, they met that challenge. As Matt Bai noted, up until this point in time, a politician’s personal life was left alone by the media. Journalists cited their families, friends, causes, and simple things of that nature, but never crossed the invisible line of actively investigating their intimate moments.
My Complete Book Review: http://www.emandp.com/blog/2016/1/30/...
In today’s society, the everyday citizen can simply take out their phone and Google someone. If there has ever been a scandalous moment in that person’s life, the documentation will be easily accessible, making it impossible for an issue to simply be forgotten.The Gary Hart scandal was the turning point for combining public and private lives. Hart gave the media the challenge to find anything troublesome about his life. Unfortunately, for him, they met that challenge. As Matt Bai noted, up until this point in time, a politician’s personal life was left alone by the media. Journalists cited their families, friends, causes, and simple things of that nature, but never crossed the invisible line of actively investigating their intimate moments.
My Complete Book Review: http://www.emandp.com/blog/2016/1/30/...
October 20, 2014
Full disclosure, I'm friends with the author. But I think I can be objective when I say that "All The Truth is Out" is both a tremendous example of dogged, thoughtful reporting and an amazingly trenchant analysis of the degeneration of political coverage in the wake of the Gary Hart scandal. Matt's indictment of the the way our national election coverage has devolved into the realm of infotainment is downright stinging -- he's in a unique position to determine that this particular emperor has no clothes, and he backs up that determination brilliantly. The book also rescues Gary Hart from his seemingly undeserved status as perpetual punchline; you'll definitely not look at him the same way again.
February 5, 2015
I am unsure how to rate this book. One on hand, I found the story compelling. On the other hand, I found the author's blatant yearning for days gone by - when men were men, and journalists drank scotch with politicians - naive and shortsighted.
September 25, 2020
I picked this book up because I'm increasingly interested in better understanding the rise of New Democrats and their impact on public attitudes around government. I read a lot about this book when it came out and was generally sympathetic to the author, Matt Bai's, argument that the coverage of Gary Hart marked an inflection point on the relationship between the press and politicians.
The book is well-reported when it comes to Gary Hart and his team's perspective. It becomes less so in understanding the motives of others. For example, the book characterizes Betty Friedan being happy about Hart leaving the race as being part of a women's liberation critique of his womanizing. Well, maybe. But it could also have a lot to do with Hart's work, as campaign manager for then-presidential candidate George McGovern, thwarting the women's movement's efforts to add abortion to the democratic platform. Could it be that those women disagreed with him on matters of policy, not conduct? Bai doesn't seem to bother to consider the question.
Similarly, Bai's argument that young liberals became total scolds about adultery is laughable given how many defended Bill Clinton under much worse circumstances.
That said, there's a lot of clarifying reporting and myth-busting, and the endurance of some of those myths hasn't been beneficial to our democracy. It turns out that the Miami Herald pursued the tip on Hart's affair before the infamous taunt for the press to come after him was ever published. To the degree that Hart was a candidate who ran on ideas, and the sense that we have yet to see another candidate of the type secure a major party's nomination, helps preserve the often stale state of debate in our country about the major issues of the day. In a number of ways his failure--and the lack of real debate about his ideas--meant that many calcified and became damaging public policies that further accelerated income disparity that continues to destabilize our country today.
The book is well-reported when it comes to Gary Hart and his team's perspective. It becomes less so in understanding the motives of others. For example, the book characterizes Betty Friedan being happy about Hart leaving the race as being part of a women's liberation critique of his womanizing. Well, maybe. But it could also have a lot to do with Hart's work, as campaign manager for then-presidential candidate George McGovern, thwarting the women's movement's efforts to add abortion to the democratic platform. Could it be that those women disagreed with him on matters of policy, not conduct? Bai doesn't seem to bother to consider the question.
Similarly, Bai's argument that young liberals became total scolds about adultery is laughable given how many defended Bill Clinton under much worse circumstances.
That said, there's a lot of clarifying reporting and myth-busting, and the endurance of some of those myths hasn't been beneficial to our democracy. It turns out that the Miami Herald pursued the tip on Hart's affair before the infamous taunt for the press to come after him was ever published. To the degree that Hart was a candidate who ran on ideas, and the sense that we have yet to see another candidate of the type secure a major party's nomination, helps preserve the often stale state of debate in our country about the major issues of the day. In a number of ways his failure--and the lack of real debate about his ideas--meant that many calcified and became damaging public policies that further accelerated income disparity that continues to destabilize our country today.
May 29, 2018
I was just a kid when the Gary Hart scandal occurred, and I was more interested in the Iran-Contra debacle anyway (I was a weird kid), so despite my love of scandal-mongering tabloid tv like A Current Affair and Inside Edition (again, weird kid), I don't remember much about it.
Bai's book is both a sort of biography of Hart and exploration of his political ideas, a study of media trends at the time (informed by Neil Postman), and an account of the events of the scandal itself.
I don't agree with Bai or Hart's notion that sexual infidelity on the part of politicians is a private affair, irrelevant to the moral character of the political candidate. Not at all.
But while I reject that, the book is well worth reading, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 election, where scandal and moral failure IS the story, from Hillary Clinton and her rape apologia for her husband verses the numerous sexual and moral failures of the now President Trump.
This isn't entirely where it began - at Politico, Tom Fielder, one of the reporters involved in the Hart reporting recalls how Alexander Hamilton's sexual misdeeds ended his presidential goals. Fielder argues that the "boys club" of reporters ignoring the indiscretions of JFK and LBJ was the anomaly, not the norm.
So take the book with a grain of salt, sure, but it is still worth reading and contemplating.
Bai's book is both a sort of biography of Hart and exploration of his political ideas, a study of media trends at the time (informed by Neil Postman), and an account of the events of the scandal itself.
I don't agree with Bai or Hart's notion that sexual infidelity on the part of politicians is a private affair, irrelevant to the moral character of the political candidate. Not at all.
But while I reject that, the book is well worth reading, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 election, where scandal and moral failure IS the story, from Hillary Clinton and her rape apologia for her husband verses the numerous sexual and moral failures of the now President Trump.
This isn't entirely where it began - at Politico, Tom Fielder, one of the reporters involved in the Hart reporting recalls how Alexander Hamilton's sexual misdeeds ended his presidential goals. Fielder argues that the "boys club" of reporters ignoring the indiscretions of JFK and LBJ was the anomaly, not the norm.
So take the book with a grain of salt, sure, but it is still worth reading and contemplating.
March 30, 2019
This is the first reasonable argument about the press having gone too far into politicians' personal lives. It does make me wonder how much of a person's private choices matter if they don't affect their work performance. In any other job would we care if someone had an affair? Personally, yes, but should they lose their job for it? Bai writes in a matter-of-fact, disassociated manner that suits this topic. Definitely recommended, especially as an insight into how America got to the place where Trump is president - but being written before the fact.
February 13, 2018
What an interesting read especially in our current political climate. Social media has created a 24-hour news cycle that did not exist in 1987. Also, I was 10 when the infamous week Gary Hart transpired. This gave me a depth of journalism and tabloids. I’d not thought of the National Enquirer in over a decade, now it’s all TMZ, Twitter, etc. I’m intrigued to see the upcoming film about Gary Hart with Hugh Jackman portraying him.
February 9, 2017
A good read that sheds light on why today's politicians are either entertainers or guardedly wooden; it helps explain Trump's reality TV "appeal" in this new age of political media coverage.
June 30, 2015
The sub-title hints at the topic: the week in May, 1987 that the Gary Hart presidential campaign blew up with the Donna Rice/"Monkey Business" affair. The book is written by Matt Bai, who was the New York Times Magazine's political correspondent in the late 1990's and into this century.
Bai argues that it was the Hart campaign that changed the rules for political candidates so that their personal lives were in play. Worse yet, it has put handlers between the campaign press and the candidates because everything has to be controlled.
Previously editors felt that Lyndon Johnson's or John Kennedy's philandering were "out of bounds" but that changed in May 1987 when politics became the domain of entertainment media and paparazzi.
Bai's account starts slowly as he talks around the subject in the first 50 pages and even shields the reader from what people knew while working for Hart on the "Stop the Olympics" campaign: that the former divinity student was a long-standing skirt-chaser.
However, as Bai gets into the account of how the Donna Rice story was unfolded by the Miami Herald, the drama gets better. As newspapers and electronic media began to focus on the Hart story, one of the women Gary had seen while separated from his wife "wanted him to know that if reporters came knocking at her door, she would kill herself."
Bai himself waffles between the argument that it was inevitable that personal lives would become political fodder and the belief that it is irrelevant. He cites Neil Postman, who in a book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" predicted that "the more political coverage focused on the personality of candidates, and the more those candidates tried to broaden their own celebrity by show up on the sets of TV shows, the more People and the National Enquirer started to think of them as stars in a national drama."
The reporters of the era didn't feel the same way: Paul Taylor, the Washington Post reporter, who at Dartmouth college that week got Hart to admit to having an affair, thinks that there's a difference between public and private morality and that politicians should have personal privacy. Abe Rosenthal, then the New York Times executive editor, felt that the Miami Herald was so out-of-bounds in following Hart and Donna Rice to his Washington townhouse that he told Herald management that he would block the newspaper from receiving any Pulitzer prizes at all if it nominated the Hart story.
And, of course, the question remains how much Hart himself was to blame, as he had told reporters inquiring about his extra-marital affairs to "follow me around" and be bored by what they saw.
Matt Bai he clearly believes that the "entertainment" factor is giving us hollow, inexperienced candidates like Sarah Palin and that it also dumbed-down the campaigns of both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
There are lots of political tidbits in the book too, such as Bill Dixon, Hart's campaign manager, vowing never to return to Washington, DC after the campaign blew up. Despite the faced that Dixon's law firm would later hire Barack Obama -- he still hasn't been back to the Capital.
And the book treats what Hart has done since. Initially, near broke, he managed to support his family because Mikhail Gorbachev referred a large number of commercial firms doing business in Russia to Hart's law firm. In the past 10 years, he has served on a number of national security advisory committees. But he has never admitted to an affair with Donna Rice, which Bai admires as an indication of his character. (Gary Hart is now 78.)
Rice herself after being fired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals because she was such a distraction, would get involved with "the Fellowship," a group of religious activists that also rallied around Charles Colson (of Watergate fame) after undergoing a deep depression. (Colson became a minister after his time in prison.) Rice also married, moved to McLean, VA and became communications director for Enough is Enough, an anti-pornography group.
Bai argues that it was the Hart campaign that changed the rules for political candidates so that their personal lives were in play. Worse yet, it has put handlers between the campaign press and the candidates because everything has to be controlled.
Previously editors felt that Lyndon Johnson's or John Kennedy's philandering were "out of bounds" but that changed in May 1987 when politics became the domain of entertainment media and paparazzi.
Bai's account starts slowly as he talks around the subject in the first 50 pages and even shields the reader from what people knew while working for Hart on the "Stop the Olympics" campaign: that the former divinity student was a long-standing skirt-chaser.
However, as Bai gets into the account of how the Donna Rice story was unfolded by the Miami Herald, the drama gets better. As newspapers and electronic media began to focus on the Hart story, one of the women Gary had seen while separated from his wife "wanted him to know that if reporters came knocking at her door, she would kill herself."
Bai himself waffles between the argument that it was inevitable that personal lives would become political fodder and the belief that it is irrelevant. He cites Neil Postman, who in a book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" predicted that "the more political coverage focused on the personality of candidates, and the more those candidates tried to broaden their own celebrity by show up on the sets of TV shows, the more People and the National Enquirer started to think of them as stars in a national drama."
The reporters of the era didn't feel the same way: Paul Taylor, the Washington Post reporter, who at Dartmouth college that week got Hart to admit to having an affair, thinks that there's a difference between public and private morality and that politicians should have personal privacy. Abe Rosenthal, then the New York Times executive editor, felt that the Miami Herald was so out-of-bounds in following Hart and Donna Rice to his Washington townhouse that he told Herald management that he would block the newspaper from receiving any Pulitzer prizes at all if it nominated the Hart story.
And, of course, the question remains how much Hart himself was to blame, as he had told reporters inquiring about his extra-marital affairs to "follow me around" and be bored by what they saw.
Matt Bai he clearly believes that the "entertainment" factor is giving us hollow, inexperienced candidates like Sarah Palin and that it also dumbed-down the campaigns of both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
There are lots of political tidbits in the book too, such as Bill Dixon, Hart's campaign manager, vowing never to return to Washington, DC after the campaign blew up. Despite the faced that Dixon's law firm would later hire Barack Obama -- he still hasn't been back to the Capital.
And the book treats what Hart has done since. Initially, near broke, he managed to support his family because Mikhail Gorbachev referred a large number of commercial firms doing business in Russia to Hart's law firm. In the past 10 years, he has served on a number of national security advisory committees. But he has never admitted to an affair with Donna Rice, which Bai admires as an indication of his character. (Gary Hart is now 78.)
Rice herself after being fired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals because she was such a distraction, would get involved with "the Fellowship," a group of religious activists that also rallied around Charles Colson (of Watergate fame) after undergoing a deep depression. (Colson became a minister after his time in prison.) Rice also married, moved to McLean, VA and became communications director for Enough is Enough, an anti-pornography group.
May 30, 2015
I read an article lamenting that this book had languishing sales and decided to grab a copy. This was after I read and enjoyed the shortened version Bai had published in the Times Magazine. That’s all you need to read.
The book is a let down after having read the article and it’s unfortunate when a work is so clearly superior as a summary. Bai has an interesting story to tell in Hart’s downfall, but is too enamored with his subject to recognize that he did in fact have weaknesses as a candidate other than this scandal.
Additionally, this poses as a jeremiad and pulls from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. I have also read this book a few times and revised my original assessment over the years. Postman and Bai both make the mistake of assuming that their audience is dumber than they actually are. There are legitimate questions of journalistic integrity to be explored but that is not effectively done. Bai is very clear and becomes repetitive as the chapters progress.
This is to say nothing of the writing. A minor detail would be referring to a televised broadcast as being pixelated, but this wouldn’t have been possible given the analog technology used at the time. This is nitpicking of the highest order on my part, but it is this level of commitment I expect. There are plenty of other adjectives that could have been used: blurry, fuzzy, staticy, etc. One of the defining characteristics of my experience in reading was eye rolling at color phrasing and word choice.
Read the New York Times article instead and save your time and money.
The book is a let down after having read the article and it’s unfortunate when a work is so clearly superior as a summary. Bai has an interesting story to tell in Hart’s downfall, but is too enamored with his subject to recognize that he did in fact have weaknesses as a candidate other than this scandal.
Additionally, this poses as a jeremiad and pulls from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. I have also read this book a few times and revised my original assessment over the years. Postman and Bai both make the mistake of assuming that their audience is dumber than they actually are. There are legitimate questions of journalistic integrity to be explored but that is not effectively done. Bai is very clear and becomes repetitive as the chapters progress.
This is to say nothing of the writing. A minor detail would be referring to a televised broadcast as being pixelated, but this wouldn’t have been possible given the analog technology used at the time. This is nitpicking of the highest order on my part, but it is this level of commitment I expect. There are plenty of other adjectives that could have been used: blurry, fuzzy, staticy, etc. One of the defining characteristics of my experience in reading was eye rolling at color phrasing and word choice.
Read the New York Times article instead and save your time and money.
February 15, 2015
I read an excerpt of Matt Bai's book in the NY Times magazine last year and immediately wanted to follow up by reading the book. It's mainly about Gary Hart's campaign in the 1988 presidential election but it also chronicles that moment in time when everything became fair game to journalists and thus the public. In the past presidents like LBJ and JFK had private lives (meaning affairs) and the press was hands off - nothing was reported at the time. However, something changed with Gary Hart's presumed affair (as of 2014 neither Hart nor Donna Rice has admitted to an affair). It could be that the press thought he was challenging them to "follow him" and so stalked him this one time (Hart had previous affairs that reporters knew about but didn't bother with). If you want more about the details, you'll have to read this excellent, well-documented, very readable book. As the book flap says "the paradigm shifted - candidates' private lives became public, news became entertainment, and politics became the stuff of gossip columns".
What really comes across is Hart's strong character and his willingness and eagerness to serve his country in some way along with his desire for a private life. I think our country really lost a great mind at a time when we needed him.
What really comes across is Hart's strong character and his willingness and eagerness to serve his country in some way along with his desire for a private life. I think our country really lost a great mind at a time when we needed him.
January 8, 2016
I found this book to be a fascinating examination of the ways in which, in the 1988 presidential campaign, political journalism shifted from a policy to personality focus. Bai does a fantastic job reporting the facts of the scandal and media firestorm that engulfed then-Senator Gary Hart and caused him to end his campaign in 1987, demonstrating skill as a researcher and journalist. I was impressed how the author deftly handled both the very personal, human elements of the narrative while painting the big picture for readers that the events of that early summer had consequences that reached far beyond one single campaign.
The audiobook provided easy listening, and an often welcome distraction from the political news coverage of the day. The talented writing and very able narration kept me interested and engaged from start to finish--no small feat for audio nonfiction.
I'd suggest this book, and especially the audiobook, to West Wing junkies like myself who enjoy taking a step back from the headlines to bring the system itself into focus. Additionally, I think fans of Serial's very in-depth, immersive coverage of a single story will find it a fascinating listen.
The audiobook provided easy listening, and an often welcome distraction from the political news coverage of the day. The talented writing and very able narration kept me interested and engaged from start to finish--no small feat for audio nonfiction.
I'd suggest this book, and especially the audiobook, to West Wing junkies like myself who enjoy taking a step back from the headlines to bring the system itself into focus. Additionally, I think fans of Serial's very in-depth, immersive coverage of a single story will find it a fascinating listen.
February 16, 2016
This book was a pleasant surprise that well exceeded my expectations. In under 300 pages, the author manages to do several things. First, the book places the 1987 events surrounding Gary Hart's decisions to withdraw from the 1988 presidential race within the larger context of changes in the media and American society which changed the relationship between politicians and those who cover them. It also provides a detailed account of the events surrounding Hart and his relationship with Donna Rice, with the focus on the efforts of several Miami Herald reporters to catch him (in a surprisingly comic opera set of circumstances). Finally, the book is a larger examination of Hart and his efforts to remain part of the public debate following his disgrace. It is Hart's generational difference from many of the baby boomers in the politics and media that lies at the center of the story, as Hart's refusal to publicly apologize or write a confessional memoir or go on the lecture circuit are a major reason for his continued exile from the center of the nation's political life. The atuhor's final exchange with Hart at the Dubliner is a fitting climax to a great book.
June 24, 2015
What a great book this is! When I exclaimed that to my sister and started to explain why, she stopped me, asking, "Who is Gary Hart?" Yes, Gary Hart. He likely could have been a highly successful president, but a media circus trashed him before his candidacy (1987) really got started. Specifically what initiated his downward slide was a question put to him by an establishment (Washington Post) reporter: "Have you ever committed adultery?" Given a previous era coziness between the Washington press corps and presidents, such a question would never have been posed to known adulterers (FDR, JFK, LBJ), but when put to Hart it changed politics forever. This highly engaging account of Hart's fall is intertwined with astute observations about the tectonic shift that has occurred in press-politician relationships, the point in time when the lines between entertainment and politics merged. Author's reflective interviews with primary participants in the Hart saga (after 25 years) contribute much to this book's appeal.
September 28, 2015
A brilliant book.
Well written, heavily researched and insightful exploration of the events in 1987 that led to the suspension of Gary Hart's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and, more importantly, the impact of those events on the relationship between the media and politics and, by extension, the relationship between both of those parties and the public.
The book leaves you wondering what might have been if a few things had happened differently and how life might be different if Hart had been allowed to continue and win the Presidency. You end up feeling sad for what we miss out on by focusing on personality above politics.
Should be of interest to anyone interested in US politics, or the relationship between the media and politics in any country.
Well written, heavily researched and insightful exploration of the events in 1987 that led to the suspension of Gary Hart's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and, more importantly, the impact of those events on the relationship between the media and politics and, by extension, the relationship between both of those parties and the public.
The book leaves you wondering what might have been if a few things had happened differently and how life might be different if Hart had been allowed to continue and win the Presidency. You end up feeling sad for what we miss out on by focusing on personality above politics.
Should be of interest to anyone interested in US politics, or the relationship between the media and politics in any country.
November 6, 2025
This is an entertaining work of narrative political history. I watched the associated film too which ironically counteracts the messaging of the book. However, it is also amusing that someone (Bai) can look at the political landscape today, knowing what we know, and believe journalism was uniquely unkind to Hart or that history would have taken a different course if Gary Hart's proclivity for Monkey Business wasn't exposed right after he dared reporters to expose him. Additionally, to the extent Bai's argument is true the rational political response is to run figures like Donald Trump for office, who are immune to personal scandal based on their existing celebrity and persona.
November 15, 2014
"We're not the worst thing we've ever done in our lives, and there's a tendency to think that we are. " -Bob Kerrey
The tabloidization of politics, framed here by Gary Hart's failed presidential nomination in 1987, has led us to a place where we define politicians by their transgressions rather than their ideas. The media's attempt to humanize and characterize politicians distracts us from what should be most important: Not whether we'd like to sit and have a beer with them, but whether they are suited to lead.
The tabloidization of politics, framed here by Gary Hart's failed presidential nomination in 1987, has led us to a place where we define politicians by their transgressions rather than their ideas. The media's attempt to humanize and characterize politicians distracts us from what should be most important: Not whether we'd like to sit and have a beer with them, but whether they are suited to lead.
January 4, 2019
The world of investigative journalism has evolved with the way news is dispensed but the desire to seek out scandals or controversy was there back in 1987 as it is today. Matt Bai tells a story worth reading. Man, what if Gary Hart won the 1988 presidential election...how would American politics look today?
May 9, 2014
Must read for anyone interested in what's happened to politics or - perhaps more importantly - political journalism.
October 13, 2014
Surprisingly page-turning must-read for anyone interested in journalism, political writing and media analysis/history. Six on the Seven-Star System™.
October 21, 2014
OH PLEASE, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE PHILANDERING MEN??! ✊
June 23, 2015
You only think you know what happened to Gary Hart. You do not, nor did I.
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