On the Edge

Elizabeth Drew's On the Edge is the first inside, full-spectrum report on the Clinton Presidency. Since he came to office, Clinton has been hard to read - ambitious and uncertain, looking toward the future and hounded by the past. From the first days of the administration, Drew has been speaking with and learning from the President's top advisers, key Cabinet officers, and well-placed members of Congress, as she has watched - up close, behind the scenes - as plans are hammered out, policies set, and problems confronted. Drew tells the remarkable story of this turbulent term - and deciphers what it means. Clinton's far-reaching domestic proposals and considerable achievements are recounted, as well as the distracting and corrosive personal struggles, especially Whitewater. Drew portrays his legislative gambles - from health care to NAFTA - and his costly inattention to foreign policy - the confused policymaking on Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti. She reveals the struggles within the President's foreign policy team. She traces how controversies over such a wide range of issues and events - gays in the military, the mishandling of Zoe Baird's and Lani Guinier's nominations, the $200 haircut, the travel office, and the death of Vincent Foster - have undermined confidence in Clinton's Presidency and fanned the flames of "the character issue." She shows sides of Clinton never seen before and explores the critical and little-understood role of Hillary Rodham Clinton - both as a power and as a personality - and measures the truly unprecedented influence of Vice President Al Gore.