Clintons Snub Stephanopoulos Wedding
NewsMax.com
Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 12:04 p.m. EST
Attention-starved ex-president Bill Clinton has crashed at least two weddings in the last six months where total strangers were tying the knot - just to bask in the glow of his post-presidential celebrity status.
But one celebration neither he nor his senatorial spouse Hillary Rodham bothered showing up for was Tuesday's marriage of former top Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos to actress Alexandra Wentworth.
The guest list for Stephanopoulos' New York affair had plenty of other Clinton White House alum, including Dee Dee Myers, James Carville and Whitewater lawyer turned Clinton book agent Robert Barnett.
Also on hand was a gaggle of Clinton-loving media types, Stephie's ABC News colleagues Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, as well as other Clinton-friendlies.
But no Bill and Hill.
It's doubtful they hadn't been invited, especially after all the water the groom had carried for the former first couple over the years.
Next to Carville, young George was probably most responsible for enabling the Clintons to sneak past a myriad of burgeoning scandals to win a 43 percent victory in 1992. The two operatives had helped co-create the Clinton damage control and attack machine, using it to great effect from the Clinton campaign's War Room headquarters in Little Rock.
For his trouble, Stephanopoulos was appointed a senior White House adviser, which mostly meant it was he who would have to stand there and endure Bill Clinton's daily morning tirades, known to insiders as "purple rages." Then there were Hillary's foul-mouthed tantrums, which Stephie got to see up close and personal.
Still he soldiered on. Young George probably performed his most valuable service to the Clintons in 1996, when he managed to intimidate all but one of the the major news networks from covering the explosive book by White House whistleblower, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, "Unlimited Access."
Had Aldrich's book received the kind of media attention it deserved, Bill and Hill would have almost certainly been shown the door that November. For that accomplishment alone, the Clintons owe Stephanopoulos their undying gratitude.
But the aide's courageous 1998 defection from the Clinton camp right after the Lewinsky scandal broke -- followed by his own relatively mild 1999 tell-all "All Too Human," where he described his disappointment at learning how many allegations against the Clintons were actually true, is said to have infuriated his former bosses.
Apparently Bill and Hillary are still carrying a grudge.
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