For generations now, “If They’d Only Listened to Me” has served as the mythical title of the ultimate Washington memoir. The staffer/speechwriter/advisor/ex-close friend of a president/senator/ambassador lands a book contract and agrees to look back over his government service more in sorrow than in anger. He is reluctantly forced to conclude that if his mentor, an otherwise well meaning sort, had only listened to him and taken his advice, the world would have avoided many calamities that are otherwise the mentor’s sole responsibility.
This campaign season has produced a new kind of as-told-to memoir. The template appears in a story in the current issue of Politico magazine. The new title might be “They Did Listen To Me, And You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!”
