Includes bibliographical references (p. [477]-481) and index.

"Bill Clinton transformed American politics, and his eight years as president - a constant succession of remarkable achievements and maddening failures - spawned arguments that continue to resonate. In The Survivor, John F. Harris reveals the inner workings of the Clinton White House and provides the first comprehensive and objective analysis of Clinton's leadership and its consequences." "Harris shows Clinton entering the Oval Office in 1993 primed to make history. But with a sagging economy and the country coming off a nearly uninterrupted generation of Republican presidents, the new president's arrival was tumultuous. His troubles were exacerbated by the habits and management style he had developed in his years as governor of Arkansas. Bill Clinton's enthusiasm and temper were legendary, and he and Hillary Rodham Clinton - whose ambitions and ordeals also fill these pages - arrived filled with mistrust about many of the characters who greeted them in the "permanent Washington" that often holds the reins in the nation's capital." "Clinton's two terms were years of steady growth, as he became more commanding in his presidential image and more skilled at using the powerful White House platform. After the debacle of his attempted overhaul of health care and the Republican takeover of Congress, Clinton refashioned his presidency and crafted a new brand of centrist politics. In the years that followed, Clinton repeatedly bested his political adversaries on both sides of the partisan aisle - sometimes facing as much skepticism from fellow Democrats as from Republican foes. Yet as Harris shows in his accounts of this president's frustrations in the war against terrorism and the personal controversies that regularly engulfed him, Bill Clinton never transcended his tendency to favor conciliation over clarity, or his own destructive appetites."--BOOK JACKET