The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House-Fast Shipping

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The definitive account of one of the most accomplished, controversial, and polarizingfigures in American history

Bill Clinton is the most arresting leader of his transformed American politics, and his eight years as president spawned argumentsthat continue to resonate. For all that has been written about this singular personality–includingClinton’s own massive autobiography–there has been no comprehensive, nonpartisanoverview of the Clinton presidency.

Few writers are as qualified and equipped totackle this vast subject as the award-winning veteran Washington Post correspondentJohn F. Harris, who covered Clinton for six of his eight years in office–as longas any reporter for a major newspaper. In
The Survivor, Harris frames the historicaldebate about President William Jefferson Clinton, by revealing the inner workingsof the Clinton White House and providing the first objective analysis of Clinton’sleadership and its consequences.

Harris shows Clinton entering the Oval Office in1993 primed to make history. But with the Cold War recently concluded and the countrycoming off a nearly uninterrupted generation of Republican presidents, the new president’sentry into this maelstrom of events was tumultuous. His troubles were exacerbatedby the habits, personal contacts, and the management style, he had developed in hisyears as governor of Arkansas. Clinton’s enthusiasm and temper were legendary, andhe and Hillary Rodham Clinton–whose ambitions and ordeals also fill these pages–arrivedfilled with mistrust about many of the characters who greeted them in the “permanentWashington” that often holds the reins in the nation’s capital.

Showing surprisingdoggedness and a deep-set desire to govern from the middle, Clinton repeatedly roseto the challenges; eventually winning over (or running over) political adversarieson both sides of the aisle–sometimes facing as much skepticism from fellow Democratsas from his Republican foes. But as Harris shows in his accounts of political debaclessuch as the attempted overhaul of health care, Clinton’s frustrations in the waragainst terrorism, and the numerous personal controversies that time and again threatenedto consume his presidency, Bill Clinton could never manage to outrun his tendencyto favor conciliation over clarity, or his own destructive appetites.

The Survivor is the best kind of history, a book filled with major revelations–the tense dynamicof the Clinton inner circle and Clinton’s professional symbiosis with Al Gore tothe imprint of Clinton’s immense personality on domestic and foreign affairs–as wellas the minor details that leaven all great political narratives. This long-awaitedsynthesis of the dominant themes, events, and personalities of the Clinton yearswill stand as the authoritative and lasting work on the Clinton Presidency.