For Immediate Release: Katie Wright (703) 683-5004 - Wednesday, June 12, 2002

Anticipated Host of ABC's Sunday Show Left Bill Clinton Behind But Never Set Aside Liberal Desires

Devoted to Bringing About Liberal Change

     George Stephanopoulos spent much of his career trying to further liberal causes and candidates by twisting the news agenda and spinning reporters. In the White House, he tried to push a liberal President even further to the left. Yet ABC claims he's so dispassionate he can now serve as the solo host this fall of a revamped This Week without the slightest liberal tilt. Apparently, they haven't read Stephanopoulos's 1999 memoir, All Too Human, in which he documented his belief that America would be a better place with more liberals in office and more liberal laws running our lives:

     • "Working against Reagan's budget [in 1981] made me a Democrat. I didn't think supply-side economics would work, and I didn't believe it was fair. Perhaps it wouldn't have happened had I had a different summer job, but unlike the millions of Democrats whom Reagan inspired to vote Republican, I was a Republican he pushed the other way." (page 15)

     • "Clinton was more impressive up close, smart and ready. Yes, he was more conservative than I. He supported the death penalty; I was against it. He supported Bush's Gulf War; I was for extending sanctions. He supported the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s; I thought this policy was both illegal and wrong." (page 30)

     • "[In January 1992] the Star tabloid was faxing around a story that Clinton had had affairs with five Arkansas women, including Gennifer Flowers....[Arriving at an event], a reporter from Fox TV was waiting in the lobby. To me that constituted proof of conspiracy. The Star and Fox were both owned by ultraconservative Rupert Murdoch." (pages 56-57)

     • "Gene [Sperling] and I were trying to convince [Mario] Cuomo that joining the Supreme Court was both his destiny and his duty; that he owed it to himself, his President, his country - and to us. Although Cuomo's regular reprises of Hamlet were exasperating, he was still our hero. The possibility of having Clinton in the White House and Cuomo on the Court was too good to be true." (page 167)

     • "[When Clinton supported affirmative action], I had a win - my most satisfying yet. I thought we were doing the right thing for (basically) the right reasons. The more I had studied and learned, the more I had encountered people who knew and cared about affirmative action, the more I had become convinced that embracing the idea and its advocates was a form of presidential leadership. That's what Clinton was going to do, that's what the job was supposed to be about, and I could tell myself that it might have turned out differently if I hadn't been there." (pages 372-373)

     • "Of course, I still wanted Clinton to win. Victory would redeem our failures and validate our successes. Four more years in the White House would mean more Democratic judges on the federal bench, perhaps another seat on the Supreme Court. It would mean that more of our people would be managing the government for more time, making the day-to-day decisions that add up to meaningful change. Legislatively, Clinton would use his veto to prevent the Gingrich Congress from doing too much harm and his bully pulpit to persuade them to do some good." (page 411)

     • "[The phrase 'The era of big government is over'] proved that we had won some battles but lost the larger war, that we were prisoners of conservative rhetoric, and that the American people were as full of contradictions as their President. How would they like it if we said, 'The era of Medicare is over' - or Social Security? How would they like it if the 'era of disaster assistance' was over the next time they faced an earthquake or flood?" (pages 411-412, italics in original)

     MRC has documented how Stephanopoulos has kept his liberalism as ABC's political analyst. Do ABC's news chiefs care that he's biased, or are they so liberal themselves that they can't even tell? -- Rich Noyes and Liz Swasey

• Read more about George Stephanopoulos in MRC's Spotlight

• Also see the MRC's press release on ABC's announcement