“Game Change” by Mark Halperin and John Heilmann is an entertaining book. However, it could have a been a great one had the authors not decided merely to hint at and tiptoe around the biggest untold stories of President Obama’s long march to the presidency. It is hard to figure out why the authors went so soft on some aspects of the president’s biography and campaign when they relentlessly pilloried him on other character issues throughout the book. Perhaps the duo from central MSM-Lefty casting wanting to try and maintain some favor inside Team Obama by treading oh so lightly on the president’s most sensitive spots, but the collective impact of their thousands cuts at the president and his team nevertheless deliver a devastating impact in that it arrives from obvious friendlies interested in trying to make everyone involved in Campaign 2008 look very bad other than Obama.
Halperin and Heilmann use brass knuckles on everyone, but they tried –unsuccessfully-- not to leave many marks on Obama. The bloodiest pulp is John Edwards, and not far behind the at-one-point-feared-to-be-suicidal-by-his-staff candidate is his wife, “St. Elizabeth,” described this way by the authors: “an abusive, intrusive, paranoid condescending crazywoman." (p.127) And a shopping addict to boot, guilty of "filling her house with unopened boxes containing items she'd bought online." (p. 139).
Hillary is portrayed as a head case, and a more prolific potty-mouth than ten Nixons. Bill is a cauldron of neuroses and jealousies. The account of George W. Bush, “43,” calling “42” to assure and console him that the incumbent knows his predecessor wasn’t a racist is priceless. (p. 227). The details the authors provide about “the burning speculation about Bill’s putative priapism” make the Enquirer seem tame. From the name given to Ron Burkle’s Boeing 757 to the details of allegations concerning Bill’s relationships with Belinda Stronach, Julie Tauber McMahon and Gina Gershon (pp. 47-49), the sex lives of the former president and current Secretary of State are used to push books, and the country should hope that the heads of state with whom Mrs. Clinton will be meeting in the next three years put the book’s salaciousness down to the needs of a couple of old media reporters-turned-gossip columnists to sell some hard covers while there is still a market.