THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408040628
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ROSS C. REEVES
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
THE AGENDA
Inside the Clinton White House
BOB WOODWARD
Simon & Schuster. 334 pp. $24.
THE AGENDA IS a masterful account by Bob Woodward of the development and enactment of the Clinton ``economic plan'' during the first year of the new administration. As bizarre as it seems in retrospect, Bill Clinton took office with no strategy to reconcile his populist candidacy with the deficit reduction fever that gripped the country. The result was a divisive free-for-all among factions within the administration for control of the budget and thus the domestic agenda.
As in his six previous best sellers, including All the President's Men and The Brethren, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post editor demonstrates a brilliant knack for getting inside the skin of his subjects, allowing each faction to speak for itself through its protagonists.
The ``deficit hawks'' - notably Lloyd Bentsen, Alice Rivlin and Leon Panetta - argued that reductions in spending, as a means to lower long-term interest and boost the economy, should be the first priority. Frustrated by the inconsistency of their strategy with the promises of his campaign, Clinton dubbed them ``Eisenhower Republicans,'' but in the end adopted their approach. At the other end of the spectrum, the political consultants who had steered the campaign - James Carville, Mandy Grunwald and Paul Begala - passionately (and often comically) argued for a high-profile social agenda featuring massive spending (``investments'') and soak-the-rich tax policies.
Jockeying between these extremes as the debate swirled, seemingly without end, were the pragmatists. Senior economic advisers such as Laura Tyson warned that deficit reduction would plunge the nation back into the sort of sticky recession that had brought down the Bush administration. A contingent of political advisers, largely indifferent to economic policy, went all-out to correct the administration's lack of focus and inattention to public relations.
Three character portraits cut across Woodward's saga: George Stephanopoulos, Alan Greenspan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Stephanopoulos emerges as the ultimate pragmatist and insider, resigned to the need to channel President Clinton's changing moods and occasional outbursts of rage. Greenspan, chairman of the ``independent'' Federal Reserve, is dramatically portrayed as the outsider compelled to rein in the spending urges of the politicians.
And finally, of course, there is Hillary Clinton. Those who see her as a cross between Rasputin and the Wicked Witch of the East will not be surprised or disappointed. She is indeed a powerful force within the administration. But The Agenda dispels the simplistic notion that she dominates a weak-willed president by force of personality and pillow talk. She comes across instead as a shrewd, decisive adviser with deep reservoirs of insight into politics and personalities.
The least developed character is, oddly enough, Clinton himself. The Agenda portrays him much like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, performing a decisive role in the plot yet somehow distanced from and buffeted by the action. One is left with the impression that he is a man of prodigious talent, but, as was once said of Hubert Humphrey, most impressed by the last person he speaks to.
The Agenda is a first-rate study of internal contradictions in the administration's domestic policy that serves as a timely and informative program guide to the players in the health care debate. Woodward highlights yet-unresolved philosophical issues concerning the very nature of government and its proper role as intervener in the economy and society at large. How the administration resolves these issues at a watershed in U.S. politics will doubtless govern history's perspective on this beguiling and often bewildering president. MEMO: Ross C. Reeves is a corporate lawyer in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BLANKENHORN
Bob Woodward examines the personalities behind policy.
by CNB