'Survivor' gets inside Clinton

I confess I wasn't looking forward to reading The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John Harris.

I've read Clinton's My Life, Hillary Clinton's Living History and a half-dozen books about the Clintons by critics and admirers alike. I figured I knew more than I wanted to know about the Clintons' political and personal lives.

But I was delightfully surprised and informed by The Survivor. It's a dispassionate, insightful and balanced assessment of the man and president who inspired the most basic question, even among his aides: "Is this guy for real?"

Harris, a Washington Post reporter who covered the last six years of the Clinton White House, concludes that he was real while being "facile and entertaining, self-absorbed and self-justifying (and) undeniably impressive."

Harris is interested in policy, politics and personalities. He covers familiar territory and adds a few details, mostly who said what to whom in an administration full of warring factions.

But his most valuable contribution is context and how in crisis after crisis, Clinton "preferred and needed to preserve his options," although that was often maddening to his aides.

The book also is a reminder of how much the media, fairly or not, put Clinton on the defensive, in contrast with the Bush administration, which has put the media on the defensive.

Harris doesn't minimize Clinton's self-destructive behavior and erratic decision-making style, but he defends him, if not on Clinton's terms:

"It was not true, as Bill Clinton's most jaundiced observers would have it, that he would do anything for political survival. It was true that most of his principles were sufficiently elastic that they could accommodate political realities without a crisis of conscience."

"The stereotype of Clinton as a supremely guileful and deceptive politician was essentially wrong. On important matters, his real sentiments always surfaced, no matter how his staff tried to keep him 'on message.' "

"Clinton was not a corrupt public servant. But, on matters ranging from Whitewater to fundraising to Monica Lewinsky, he had followed a pattern of limited disclosure, evasive or false public explanations, and shabby personal conduct."

"While he was not by instinct a truthful man about his personal life, flatly untruthful statements were not his first instinct, either. His preference was for qualified and equivocal language that could give reassurance to audiences who needed it."

The book is written as an engrossing "you are there" narrative, as if Harris was privy to private meetings and intimate conversations. Of course, he wasn't.

He relies on people who were there, or their friends or critics. His reporting is supported by 31 pages of notes, but many cite unidentified advisers, associates and background interviews.

One of those unidentified sources says that when Bob Woodward, Harris' colleague at The Washington Post, was working on his 1994 book, The Agenda, about Clinton's economic plan, Clinton pleaded with him: "I'm worried you're going to make me look like a madman."

Woodward's book portrayed the Clinton White House in "a harsh but revealing light," Harris writes. "In historical terms, both the book and the economic policies it describes have held up well."

Harris' book should hold up well, too. If the best journalism is a rough first draft of history, then The Survivor is a good second draft.

It's too soon for anyone to write Clinton's definitive biography. For now, Harris has come closer than anyone.

As for Clinton's legacy, Harris concludes: "A presidency that spent so much of its time operating on defensive premises, and recovering from self-inflicted wounds, was ill suited to presidential greatness."

But if Hillary Clinton becomes president or even remains a key senator for a sustained tenure, he writes, "she could help determine how history views Bill Clinton's presidency."

We haven't heard the last of the great political survivor.