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Fat Man in a Middle Seat: Forty Years of Covering Politics
Germond is a journalist whose incisive, honest, no-nonsense reporting—and tremendous wit—are hallmarks of a singular career in punditry. He is one of our best political writers, and in this hugely entertaining memoir he serves up his inimitable views on politicians and elections across the country and recounts the daily trials of being a political reporter on the road.
He writes about countless late nights in bars, rides on campaign planes, and off-the-record briefings and strategy sessions—the real stuff of politics. Germond is perceptive, honest, and bitingly funny (especially when writing about the enormous ego of John McLaughlin).
He writes about countless late nights in bars, rides on campaign planes, and off-the-record briefings and strategy sessions—the real stuff of politics. Germond is perceptive, honest, and bitingly funny (especially when writing about the enormous ego of John McLaughlin).
304 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1999
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81 people want to read
About the author
Jack W. Germond
8 books5 followersJack Germond was a famous political columnist. He was most well known for his work at The Baltimore Sun, but he was involved in everything from newspapers to television. For a while, he regularly appeared on The McLaughlin Group.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 19, 2011
I like Jack Germond, but I’ve only known him from his TV appearances, particularly the McLaughlin Group. I never read his writing in the Baltimore Sun, where I would have most likely encountered him. He would dislike this fact given his love of newspaper journalism and his disdain for TV political reporting and analysis.
The book is generally a breezy popcorn read. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the material. One bias I may have with political books that focus on horse race reporting is that if I wasn’t around for the events, I find them harder to follow (who won what primary, etc.). In this case the organizing principal of the book (as it should be) is his life and not a particular event (a specific election or nomination battle) so you don’t get to build up familiarity with characters; they come and go quickly.
The book begins with chapters that generally are in chronological order and move through U.S. politics from the 1950s to the 1990s. Later he shifts to thematic chapters (race, lesser known politicians) and then ends unevenly with a couple of chapters where he feels the need to let us know some of his dislike for current politics (circa 1999 – I’m guessing he’d hate it more today). I think an editor could have tightened up the flow of the book (a common comment of mine), especially these last two chapters. It concludes oddly with him revealing to the reader that he divorced his first wife and now lives in West Virginia. The book was not building up to that, but that’s where he ended it. Not a terrible sin and still a readable book, but not a spectacular insight into politics, although good.
In terms of what you learn about the newspaper business and politics, clearly he has no time for TV journalism and modern campaigning. He likes retail politics where politicians must meet the people face-to-face and there is generally unfiltered access by the media.
Items I noticed:
- I assume that reporters don’t have near the access to politicians that they had in this era. Do they still do deep background where politicians and their aides spend nights drinking together? I dunno.
- He discusses media bias in contradictory ways. The interesting point is that newspaper owners are conservatives and their reporters are liberals. He claims there was no pressure by owners to shift stories to the right and that reporters don’t put in a liberal bias. However, he does point out in a couple of places that reporters fell for John or Robert Kennedy and may have treated Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees unfairly. He also notes that who the paper owners hire to run the papers tend to be acceptable white collar types who are probably biased towards conforming to advertisers and not rocking community relations. So he says there is no bias but hints that there might be.
- The book is fairly issue free. Issues only exist as a group of assigned qualities to a person and whether they have a plan for the issue and whether their stance on the issue helps or hurts. Otherwise it’s horse race politics (who’s up and who’s down) and personality (who has the temperament, who’s nice, who’s mean, and who’s accessible). He admits this explicitly near the end.
- Not surprising, nothing is new in politics. The anti-intellectualism of the current Republican Party is shown from the era of the 1950s and 1960s. Negative attacks on (perceived) intellectual elites was prominent in this era. The modern Republican Party’s disdain for anyone who learned anything from a book or school is here.
- Coming of age in the 1980s, I’m always interested in Reagan and the inside perception of him. Nothing new here: Reagan is genial and has set views that may or may not comport with reality. His genius is not caring all that much about details and holding three to four deeply held broad views. He’s also charismatic so his deficiencies are not deal breakers with people. In some way, this is modern politics, or at least modern Republican politics. Stake out a few simple ideas and pound away and always frame every issue with those few ideas. Complex problems? We have a simple answer (less government, fewer taxes, don’t trust elites, etc.)
- The chapters on race and his time on the McLaughlin Group are good. He re-reminds you of southern attitudes toward race from the 1960s and 1970s and the fact that there has been some convenient forgetfulness. He is also honest about how covering racial issues or black politicians impacted his work and how it was sometimes a struggle. The McLaughlin Group section is interesting, in part because I started watching the show in the last few years of Germond’s time (about 1991; he left in 1996). He rightfully denigrates it as non-serious but he also grasps that it is more important because it is television and he predicts the gulf between TV coverage of politics and written coverage. I don’t know if it’s fully defendable, but I would argue that TV cable “news” shows where people yell at each other and hyperbolically advance their positions owe much to the McLaughlin Group. And although Germond doesn’t say it, whenever I watched the show I noticed that while the contributors argued and raised voices about the point they were trying to make, they did not take the whole enterprise too seriously and understood they were acting a bit childishly. This same awareness is utterly lacking on cable TV “news” and it has become a serious death match for putting forth ideas and winning the argument. None of us can welcome that development but should understand that McLaughlin is the grandfather for all of these shows.
The book is generally a breezy popcorn read. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the material. One bias I may have with political books that focus on horse race reporting is that if I wasn’t around for the events, I find them harder to follow (who won what primary, etc.). In this case the organizing principal of the book (as it should be) is his life and not a particular event (a specific election or nomination battle) so you don’t get to build up familiarity with characters; they come and go quickly.
The book begins with chapters that generally are in chronological order and move through U.S. politics from the 1950s to the 1990s. Later he shifts to thematic chapters (race, lesser known politicians) and then ends unevenly with a couple of chapters where he feels the need to let us know some of his dislike for current politics (circa 1999 – I’m guessing he’d hate it more today). I think an editor could have tightened up the flow of the book (a common comment of mine), especially these last two chapters. It concludes oddly with him revealing to the reader that he divorced his first wife and now lives in West Virginia. The book was not building up to that, but that’s where he ended it. Not a terrible sin and still a readable book, but not a spectacular insight into politics, although good.
In terms of what you learn about the newspaper business and politics, clearly he has no time for TV journalism and modern campaigning. He likes retail politics where politicians must meet the people face-to-face and there is generally unfiltered access by the media.
Items I noticed:
- I assume that reporters don’t have near the access to politicians that they had in this era. Do they still do deep background where politicians and their aides spend nights drinking together? I dunno.
- He discusses media bias in contradictory ways. The interesting point is that newspaper owners are conservatives and their reporters are liberals. He claims there was no pressure by owners to shift stories to the right and that reporters don’t put in a liberal bias. However, he does point out in a couple of places that reporters fell for John or Robert Kennedy and may have treated Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees unfairly. He also notes that who the paper owners hire to run the papers tend to be acceptable white collar types who are probably biased towards conforming to advertisers and not rocking community relations. So he says there is no bias but hints that there might be.
- The book is fairly issue free. Issues only exist as a group of assigned qualities to a person and whether they have a plan for the issue and whether their stance on the issue helps or hurts. Otherwise it’s horse race politics (who’s up and who’s down) and personality (who has the temperament, who’s nice, who’s mean, and who’s accessible). He admits this explicitly near the end.
- Not surprising, nothing is new in politics. The anti-intellectualism of the current Republican Party is shown from the era of the 1950s and 1960s. Negative attacks on (perceived) intellectual elites was prominent in this era. The modern Republican Party’s disdain for anyone who learned anything from a book or school is here.
- Coming of age in the 1980s, I’m always interested in Reagan and the inside perception of him. Nothing new here: Reagan is genial and has set views that may or may not comport with reality. His genius is not caring all that much about details and holding three to four deeply held broad views. He’s also charismatic so his deficiencies are not deal breakers with people. In some way, this is modern politics, or at least modern Republican politics. Stake out a few simple ideas and pound away and always frame every issue with those few ideas. Complex problems? We have a simple answer (less government, fewer taxes, don’t trust elites, etc.)
- The chapters on race and his time on the McLaughlin Group are good. He re-reminds you of southern attitudes toward race from the 1960s and 1970s and the fact that there has been some convenient forgetfulness. He is also honest about how covering racial issues or black politicians impacted his work and how it was sometimes a struggle. The McLaughlin Group section is interesting, in part because I started watching the show in the last few years of Germond’s time (about 1991; he left in 1996). He rightfully denigrates it as non-serious but he also grasps that it is more important because it is television and he predicts the gulf between TV coverage of politics and written coverage. I don’t know if it’s fully defendable, but I would argue that TV cable “news” shows where people yell at each other and hyperbolically advance their positions owe much to the McLaughlin Group. And although Germond doesn’t say it, whenever I watched the show I noticed that while the contributors argued and raised voices about the point they were trying to make, they did not take the whole enterprise too seriously and understood they were acting a bit childishly. This same awareness is utterly lacking on cable TV “news” and it has become a serious death match for putting forth ideas and winning the argument. None of us can welcome that development but should understand that McLaughlin is the grandfather for all of these shows.
March 18, 2017
Germond, Jack W. Fat Man in a Middle Seat: Forty Years of Covering Politics. New York: Random, 1999, 2002.
I found this book more engaging and relevant than I ever imagined it would be. Like many, I knew Germond only from television. This book makes me wish I had followed his whole career in print. I also wish I could have spent a night eating, drinking, and talking with him, though I am sure I could not have kept up with him in any of these arenas. His analysis of George Wallace is especially relevant in this Trumpian era, as is his take on the strengths and weaknesses of the Clintons. His take on Reagan makes me realize that the mental decline was setting in earlier than I had realized and I was stunned to find out how similar the symptoms of his decline are to the those of Donald Trump. Reagan had the advantage of being well protected by a competent staff and a geniality that made everyone forgive him his lapses.
I found this book more engaging and relevant than I ever imagined it would be. Like many, I knew Germond only from television. This book makes me wish I had followed his whole career in print. I also wish I could have spent a night eating, drinking, and talking with him, though I am sure I could not have kept up with him in any of these arenas. His analysis of George Wallace is especially relevant in this Trumpian era, as is his take on the strengths and weaknesses of the Clintons. His take on Reagan makes me realize that the mental decline was setting in earlier than I had realized and I was stunned to find out how similar the symptoms of his decline are to the those of Donald Trump. Reagan had the advantage of being well protected by a competent staff and a geniality that made everyone forgive him his lapses.
January 13, 2023
An interesting book full of stories from Germond's career. It's too bad he didn't live long enough to cover the Trump years.
January 2, 2017
I was always a fan of Jack Germond back when he was on the McLaughlin group. This is a fun read about his years of political reporting and his own personal observations about the major political figures of our time (1950s thru 90s, mostly).
February 3, 2008
Hilarious and fun! But pretty grouchy, too. He isn't thrilled with the state of the union.
July 24, 2008
Jack Germond was the only reason to watch the McLaughlin Group on PBS for the too short time he was a regular.
July 24, 2013
Lumbering in a few spots, but fascinating overall. Worth the trip--provided you're not stuck in the window seat.
Give that man 10 points for a best-self-deprecating-title.
Give that man 10 points for a best-self-deprecating-title.
August 14, 2013
Germond was a great writer and an honest reporter. This memoir reads as though he was standing with you at the bar telling the stories.
February 1, 2016
One of the first books on Politics i read and still one of the best
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews