The Gatekeepers

Mmmmeeh. I was super excited to read this, but it ended up just being OK. It's an enamored, almost sycophantic look at the good ol' boys club that is the long line of White House Chiefs of Staff. Beginning with Nixon, it runs through each presidency until Obama's 2nd term and the election of Trump. We meet a lot of Chiefs of Staff. Some are good. Some are bad. One guy seemed terrible. One guy - Reagan's first COS - was a star.

Honestly, this sells itself as a broad, engrossing look at the last 40 years of American politics. And, yeah, it does have some fun, soapy details, like how Nancy Reagan consulted astrologers, and that one Chief of Staff who was a drunken lecher and poured some booze down some lady's dress, and Rahm Emanuel says a lot of swear words. But, like, I don't really care about that stuff that much? I certainly don't worship at the altar of that stuff. It also felt like Whipple (the author) was enlarging the Chief of Staff's role to the point that huge political events - Watergate, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, even Obama's decision not to bomb Syria - were centrally influenced by the COS at the time. I was like - maybe?! But maybe they were also influenced by all the other frickin' stuff going on?!

Throughout the whole read, I couldn't help but be reminded of The Brothers (about the Dulles bros), which WAS a vast and engrossing look at 20th century American politics. The George W. Bush section also made me remember a (better) book: Jean Edward Smith's magisterial biography of him. Even Ezekiel Emanuel's super bleh memoir about him and his brothers, Rahm and Ari, was often more captivating. (And that book was, for the most part, not really captivating.)

So... yeah. A disappointment. Don't judge me, but I felt like I got a better handle of how the West Wing - or, let's say, how a Platonic ideal of a West Wing - works via The West Wing. Specifically, the phenomenal season 1 finale - MAMMA MIA, WHAT TELEVISION.