Double-Dating with George Stephanopoulos

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGIE BOY!

ever charming...

In the mid-eighties, while I was courting the first Mrs. Porter, we often would go out with her best friend, a most attractive co-worker who'd begun dating a very bright (Rhodes scholar), nice, and attentive young man.

Friday afternoons, I recall he was wont to skip out of Congressman Feighan's office on the Hill, hop the Metro, and show up at Cheryl's desk with a bunch of daffodils in his hand.  We spent many, many hours out as a foursome, enjoying the DC nightlife - often in Adams Morgan where young George Stephanopoulos lived.

Stopping by the apartment one morning I caught George in a fascinating ritual: with NPR on the stereo, he maintained an extemporaneous dialog with the liberal politician being interviewed.  As George walked around buttoning his shirt and knotting his tie he improvised a stabbing, conservative counterpoint to every statement, every phrase.

I knew George's politics, and understood he was training himself - like a "profiler" - to think as the enemy thinks, to get in-character so as to sharpen and speed his reflexes.  George had amazing instincts for this thrust-and-parry, and was naturally armed with a chessmaster's foresight.

Two Handsome Dudes

We made a few long trips together, notably a great Fourth of July weekend with friends in Wrightsville Beach, NC.  While there George and I went for a 5-mile run together, and rounding the crown of a hill we passed a solitary shack where AC/DC's "Long Way To The Top (If Ya Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" was playing at top volume.

I mercilessly made him run through the yard and circle the property with me, provoking George to ask me about the attraction of heavy metal, as he pleaded that "It just doesn't have any appeal to me."  We discussed AC/DC and Van Halen, then Motorhead, which I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to interest him in during the drive south in our VW Camper Van.  George was unmoved.

A week later on Nantucket, when I proposed to my fiance, Cheryl and George were the first people we called back home with the news.

It Had To Be Him

... but could have been me ?

Well, eventually George made his way to NYC, then back to DC for Dick Gephardt's campaign, then the Clinton WAR ROOM, and the rest is history.  He's married - not to the old friend, but to the sister of a different DC friend.

And they say he's on TV...

Without fail, always a super, caring, and decent guy.  Hey there, Georgie Boy!