George Stephanopoulos

After years of toiling in the shadows of a giant, ABC's Sunday morning public affairs program, "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," is finally beginning to step into the spotlight once exclusively occupied by NBC's "Meet the Press." It's the economy, stupid, plus "This Week's" round table has been called pretty smart. "Meet the Press" has long been the dominant program, so far this season attracting about 4.3 million viewers each week.

While a former presidential advisor testified Tuesday before the federal grand jury examining the nature of President Clinton's dealings with a former intern, White House lawyers weighed whether to try to block the questioning of two current senior aides, officials said. After appearing before the grand jury for about three hours, former advisor George Stephanopoulos, termed his testimony "straightforward," and said he had been familiar with the former intern, Monica S. Lewinsky.

The politics of musical chairs. . . . You can't blame young, largely unnoticed Fox News (say who?) for boasting about hiring Brit Hume, a Washington press corps VIP who got especially famous at ABC News while covering the White House for nine years and, since 1992, becoming a royal pain to the Clinton administration. Smart move. He gives Fox News a face and a pedigree. Plus a power couple in Fox's Washington office, in that his wife, Kim, is already its deputy bureau chief.

White House Senior Advisor George Stephanopoulos says he's ready "to grow up" and move on to other professional challenges if President Clinton wins a second term. Stephanopoulos, among the group of youthful "War Room" strategists who helped get Clinton elected in 1992, said his five years of working for the president are starting to wear him down. "In some ways, it's just physical," the 35-year-old told the New Yorker magazine.

James Carville (pictured), Bill Clinton's sardonic 1992 campaign strategist, has as much on-screen charisma as any Hollywood celebrity. Documentary filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus use him and director of communications George Stephanopoulos to fashion this candid and entertaining 1993 backstage look at the unlikely political juggernaut that captured the presidency (Disney Tuesday at 9 p.m., Wednesday at 4:05 a.m.).

The moral climate in America is healthy, a top White House advisor and a leader of the Christian Coalition agreed Sunday, but they said Americans are feeling disconnected from their government. "I think that basically there are some very good signs. More Americans are going to church than ever before. I think more Americans are trying to live their lives with some depth," White House senior advisor George Stephanopoulos said on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press."

The Democratic presidential candidates will participate in a forum at Drake University in Des Moines on Sunday morning. The forum will be broadcast as a special edition of ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" at 8 a.m.

Once a ratings disaster, ABC Sunday chat show "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" is showing new signs of life. The program has been on a ratings upswing, last month beating NBC's once-invulnerable "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation" in the key ages-25-to-54 demographic two weeks in a row. In a phone interview Monday, I asked Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton White House aide, about the program's comeback, his interview with Al Gore and the 2008 presidential race.

Waiting at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Nov. 5 for the delayed 7:35 a.m. flight to Manchester, N.H., George Stephanopoulos was full of guarded hope. The plan was for ABC's newest anchor, successor to the venerable David Brinkley's Sunday morning "This Week" chair, to meet with his colleagues for a three-day trip tracking the newest Democratic presidential candidate, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, on the campaign trail.