Running in Place: How Bill Clinton Disappointed America
At no other time in the history of the United States have those who govern come under such intense scrutiny. In Running in Place, award-winning columnist and writer Richard Reeves examines how President Bill Clinton operates in the new Washington, the one that's petty, venal, and hell for anyone who falters -- even for an instant.
Former chief political correspondent for The New York Times with a keen grasp of how Washington and the White House work, Reeves delivers a fascinating analysis of how Clinton and his team stumbled during the transition and never recovered. As one senator says of the Clintons, "What we're dealing with here are two VISTA volunteers who went to Arkansas twenty years ago and came back here thing it's still the sixties."
Reeves also explores Clinton's various missteps and misperceptions: the gays-in-the-military fiasco; the early signals that he would, in House Speaker Newt Gingrich's words, "govern from the left"; and a White House staff too inexperienced and too arrogant to meet the challenges of governing.
With his knack for synthesizing mountains of information and combining it with his own astute observations, Reeves has made Running in Place compelling reading for anyone interested in politics, government and power.
Reviews
"Richard Reeves is a marvelous observer, writer and reporter. That makes him one of the best columnists in the country." Detroit Free Press
"Many of the people who supported Bill Clinton in 1992 expected better of him. Perhaps it was candidate Bill Clinton's lofty orations, but many saw in Clinton a 1990s version of John F. Kennedy and a return to that time. Richard Reeves, journalist and author of books on Presidents Kennedy, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, is in that camp, and 'disappointment' seems to be the best word for its view of Clinton. Reeves, whose wide-angle book doesn't fall into the same trap as a recent spate of books that offer instant analysis in the guise of history, explains how his disappointment has resulted from Clinton's inability to inspire." Amazon.com
"The Clinton White House--presided over by a slippery, shameless fellow who would tell a television interviewer that he sleeps in briefs -- is, to the appalled Mr. Reeves, more Dog Patch than Camelot." Michael Wright, New York Times Book Review
"Longtime political correspondent and columnist Reeves wants to like a president who has halved deficit spending as a percentage of GNP and started his term of office with the most successful legislative record since Lyndon Johnson, but . . . Clinton is too attentive to polls, too talkative about his personal process of decision making, too much a self-made man (like too many other politicians these days, Reeves says), too casual and collegial in his administrative style (the insolent 'kids in the White House' drive Reeves nuts), too dependent on his wife (who has 'the political instincts of a stone,' Reeves says). On the other hand, Clinton has suffered from a ruthless, self-aggrandizing, conscienceless press corps that spills a leak first and asks questions later, if ever; and from opponents who indulge even the most scurrilous, baseless calumny against him and, of course, exaggerate the real dirt until it is virtually a pornographic fantasy. Although just the thing to read before November 5, Reeves' analysis is perspicacious enough to last beyond election day." Ray Olson, Booklist
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