Game Change

Hendrik Hertzberg reviewed the book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. This book (and it's terrible title. Could it be any wordier?) made headlines recently for revealing the Harry Reid "negro"/"light-skinned" comment. I had heard that the book is more like gossip than investigative journalism, and that there are some ethical concerns behind the book. And, so, upon reading Hertzberg's review, I love how perfectly he described it:

The story of the 2008 presidential campaign is a more than twice-told tale, but this is the first time it has been told in the style of an airport potboiler. The prose races along, lubricated by cliches. Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, tells the Clintons that Hillary has finished third in the Iowa caucuses: "McAuliffe's words landed like a roundhouse right on the Clintons' collective jaw." Barack Obama hits town as a newly minted United States senator: "He was smarter than the average bear, not to mention the average politician, and he not only knew it but wanted to make sure that everyone else knew it, too." The queen of Hillaryland wins in New Hampshire: "She looked like a quarterback who'd just completed a last-second Hail Mary pass in overtime." (In the Clinton White House, Hillaryland was the East Wing's shorthand for the First Lady's circle. Extrapolating, Heilmann and Halperin give us McCainworld, Kerryville, the Edwardsphere, and O-Town as well, inducing in the reader the bouncy sensation of being in a theme park.)

The cover is just as great as the title. Do you notice how "Game" has the word "Game" written backwards behind it? Same with "Change". Weird. The editor and book designer really dropped the ball on approving this book.

That's not to say I don't enjoy some gossip. The books points out, as the review says, that the candidates have a fondness for the word "fuck".

*John Edwards's reaction to losing in Iowa: "Well, we're fucked."

*Elizabeth Edwards's response to a certain campaign assignment: "Why the fuck do you think I'd want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets?"

*Barack Obama, referring to the chaos of "McCainworld": "No fucking discipline."

*Hillary Clinton, after being accused of citing the assassination of Robert Kennedy as a reason for her to stay in the running: "Unfuckingbelievable!"

*John McCain's response to his wife, Cindy, interrupting him: (With both middle fingers raised) "Fuck you! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

I smell Pulitzer.