In 1987, Senator Gary Hart enjoyed a substantial lead for the Democratic nomination for President and was favored to win the 1988 election. Then an unprecedented journalistic earthquake shattered his bid for the nation's highest office--and forever changed the landscape of American politics. Matt Bai (The Argument) examines Hart's campaign and the world of journalism to illuminate why this promising presidential hopeful ended up disgraced unlike any before him and any since.
In All the Truth Is Out, Bai details the impact Nixon and Watergate had on the news world. Journalists vowed never to be embarrassed by a politician's deceit to that degree again, and were tantalized by the celebrity Woodward and Bernstein achieved by breaking the story. When Tom Fiedler of the Miami Herald received an anonymous tip Hart was having an illicit affair, he set out to catch Hart in the act and uncover a scandal.
Bai suggests that the story, which may be familiar to Americans over the age of 40, hasn't been recorded quite the way it happened. He lays out a time line that contradicts the widely held course of events and questions the rationale reporters used to justify their unprecedented behavior. Bai says, "The cardinal objective of all political journalism had shifted, from a focus on agendas to a focus on narrow notions of character, from illuminating worldviews to exposing falsehoods." This haunting new perspective will leave readers wondering just how much would be different today if Hart's alleged infidelity hadn't made it into the papers. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts