George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
Born	George Robert Stephanopolous February 10, 1961 (1961-02-10) (age 47) Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Author, Political Pundit
Spouse	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. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nickname: Motto: Well Try Location in Bristol County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Bristol Settled 1670 Incorporated 1803 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor Edward M. Lambert, Jr. ... For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation) Motto In God We Trust(since 1956) (From Many, One; Latin, traditional) Anthem The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City National language English (de facto)1 Demonym American... For other uses, see Author (disambiguation). ... The term Pundit has multiple meanings: A pundit or pandit, in the culture of India, is a master of traditional religious poetry and/or traditional music. ... Alexandra Ali Wentworth (born January 12, 1966) is an American comedian, actress and author who has appeared in movies and on television. ... is the 324th day of the year (325th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... ABC News logo ABC News Special Report ident, circa 2006 ABC News is a division of American television and radio network ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Company. ... The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American television network. ... This Week is one of the five network U.S. Sunday morning political talk shows. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... The White House Communications Director is responsible for developing and promoting the voice of the administration. ...

He is married to actress Alexandra Wentworth, with whom he has two daughters. Alexandra Ali Wentworth (born January 12, 1966) is an American comedian, actress and author who has appeared in movies and on television. ...

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. Nickname: Motto: Well Try Location in Bristol County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Bristol Settled 1670 Incorporated 1803 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor Edward M. Lambert, Jr. ... Cleveland redirects here. ... ... This article is about religious workers. ... Orange High School is a public high school located in Pepper Pike, Ohio, an eastern suburb in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area and part of the Northeast Ohio region. ...

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 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. Columbia College is the main undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the universitys main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. ... A bachelors degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three, four, or in some cases and countries, five or six years. ... WKCR Sports is the department of sports programming on WKCR 89. ... Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. ... In the United States and Canada, the title of salutatorian is given to the second-highest graduate of the entire graduating class of an educational institution. ...

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. For other uses, see Washington, D.C. (disambiguation). ... Rhodes House in Oxford, designed by Sir Herbert Baker. ...

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. The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University), located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... and of the Balliol College College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister college St Johns College, Cambridge Master Andrew Graham JCR President Helen Lochead Undergraduates 403 MCR President Chelsea Payne Graduates 228 Location of Balliol College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Balliol College (pronounced... Rhodes House in Oxford, designed by Sir Herbert Baker. ...

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.^[1] St. ... An honorary degree (Latin: honoris causa ad gradum, not to be confused with an honors degree) is an academic degree awarded to an individual as a decoration, rather than as the result of matriculating and studying for several years. ...

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.^[2] 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. David Wilhelm (born 2 October 1956) is an American political operative and businessman. ... James Carville James Carville (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, commentator, media personality and pundit. ... The War Room is an American documentary film made in 1993. ... The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official with a rank one step below Presidential Cabinet level. ... Dee Dee Myers (born Margaret Jane Myers on 1 September 1961 in Providence, Rhode Island) served as White House Press Secretary for the first two years of the Clinton administration, from January 20, 1993 to December 22, 1994. ...

Stephanopoulos resigned from the Clinton administration shortly after Clinton was re-elected in 1996.^[3]

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. ^[4] Harold Ickes may refer to one of two American political figures, father and son: Harold L. Ickes: United States Secretary of the Interior in Franklin D. Roosevelts administration. ... Roger Altman is former United States Deputy Treasury Secretary; he served in that office during the presidency of Bill Clinton. ... The Resolution Trust Corporation was a US government owned asset management company mandated to sell assets (primarily real estate) that had been held as collateral against most of the bad loans of savings and loan associations. ... Madison Guaranty is an Arkansas financial trust company. ... The Whitewater Controversy (also called the Whitewater scandal or simply Whitewater) was an American political controversy concerning the real estate dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates in the Whitewater Development Agency during the 1970s and 1980s. ...

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. As a literary genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning memory), or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography, although it is an older form of writing. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... On the Threshold of Eternity. ... Urticaria or Hives is a relatively common form of allergic reaction that causes. ... My Life My Life is a 2004 autobiography written by former President of the United States Bill Clinton, who left office on January 20, 2001. ...

George Stephanopoulos is also a member of the Bilderberg Group.^[5] The front cover of the allegedly privately circulated report of the 1980 Bilderberg conference in Bad Aachen, Germany. ...

Pundit

After leaving the White House at the end of Clinton's term, Stephanopoulos became a political analyst for ABC News and served as a correspondent on the ABC Sunday talk program This Week, World News Tonight, Good Morning America, along with other various special broadcasts. In September 2002, Stephanopoulos became host of This Week, and ABC News officially named him "Chief Washington Correspondent" in December 2005. For other uses, see White House (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Clinton (disambiguation). ... ABC News logo ABC News Special Report ident, circa 2006 ABC News is a division of American television and radio network ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Company. ... This Week is one of the American Sunday-morning interview shows. ... ABC World News Tonight (often abbreviated as WNT) is the ABC television networks flagship evening news program. ... Good Morning America is a weekday morning news show that is broadcast on the ABC television network. ... This Week is one of the American Sunday-morning interview shows. ... ABC News logo ABC News Special Report ident, circa 2006 ABC News is a division of American television and radio network ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Company. ...

Stephanopoulos is currently the anchor of ABC's Sunday morning program, This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This Week is one of the five network U.S. Sunday morning political talk shows. ...

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. “Barack” redirects here. ... REDIRECT Hillary Rodham Clinton   This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. ...

Stephanopoulos was joined by colleague Charles Gibson and the event was broadcast live by ABC News from Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[6] 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.^[7] 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 domestic terrorist group The Weather Underground during the 1970s. Obama was also challenged by a woman, Pennsylvanian Nash McCabe (by webcam video), 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. ^[8] 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."^[9] However, the New York Times' David Brooks -- a 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."^[10] Democrat 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."^[11] 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.^[12] Charles Charlie Dewolf Gibson (born March 9, 1943) is an American media personality best known as co-anchor of Good Morning America on ABC from January 1987 to May 1998 and from January 1999 to June 28, 2006, a span of 19 years. ... DAR Constitution Hall DAR Constitution Hall is a concert hall located in Washington, D.C. It was built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which still owns the theater. ... For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. ... Black theology is theology from the perspective of the African diaspora - any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional homelands. ... The term Weather Underground may refer to: Weatherman (organization), a. ... Tom Shales (born November 3, 1944) is an American critic of television programming and operations. ... The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C.. It is also one of the citys oldest papers, having been founded in 1877. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... David Brooks, conservative commentator for the New York Times and other publications. ...

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.^{[citation needed]} According to Stephanopoulos, his role in the Clinton administration was more like Bradley Whitford's character Josh Lyman than Seaborn or Rothschild. [1] Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright. ... For other persons named Michael Fox, see Michael Fox (disambiguation). ... This article is about a movie. ... For other persons named Robert Lowe, see Robert Lowe (disambiguation). ... Samuel Norman Sam Seaborn is a fictional character played by Rob Lowe on the television serial drama The West Wing. ... “The West Wing” redirects here. ... Bradley Whitford (born October 10, 1959 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an Emmy Award-winning American actor. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

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. For the basketball player, see Joe Kleine. ... This article is about the book. ... Adrian Lester (born August 14, 1968) is an English actor. ...

Stephanopoulos was discussed (but not seen) in the Friends episode "The One with George Stephanopoulos". This article is about the television show. ... The One with George Stephanopoulos is the fourth episode of season one of the television situation comedy Friends. ...

Notes

References

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