Madhouse.

• Author: Clift, Eleanor

Jeffrey Birnbaum's new book, Madhouse, is about the madcap style of President Clinton and how it disrupts the lives of his closest aides. It is not a new theme, and it is hard to feel too sorry for the six people chronicled--four of whom have already gone on to pastures made greener by their short stays in the White House. Birnbaum is an excellent reporter, and in true newsmagazine style he delivers a narrative that is rich in anecdotal detail. But one cannot help feeling this is one long yuppie whine. It's tough to work at the top at UBM as well, and the rewards are typically not so great.

If there is a bigger point to Madhouse, it is the way in which hopes and dreams are dashed in Washington. Clinton's first two years, the period Bimbaum covers, disappointed even his staunchest loyalists. The aides who arrived starry-eyed from the campaign trail were particularly vulnerable to post-promise traumatic syndrome. Populist rhetoric is one thing; turning it into reality is quite another. "When you were a little kid watching Bobby Kennedy and dreaming of social justice, did you ever imagine whispering in the President's ear, `Sir, there was a big bond rally today'?" speechwriter Michael Waldman asked of economic adviser Gene Sperling after they had finished briefing Clinton for an important speech. Standing in the back of the Indian Treaty Room, waiting for Clinton to speak, the two aides laughed so hard they had to turn their backs to avoid creating a scene.

This was a welcome moment of humor in a series of profiles that turn mostly on the personal sacrifices of the White House staff. Long hours, strained relationships at home, and periodic self-assessments as to whether any job is worth this much grief have combined to make the average tenure of a White House aide 18 months, Bimbaum reports. Some of the people Bimbaum writes about were miscast from the beginning. Stars on the campaign trail, they were ill-suited to governing and didn't do their jobs well, or easily. Clinton himself has said that he made a fundamental error after his election in concentrating so heavily on the makeup of his Cabinet, and assuming he could successfully staff his White House with mostly youthful campaign aides under the supervision of the genial but terminally indecisive Mack McLarty.

With the exception of press secretary Dee Dee Meyers, the people Bimbaum profiles are not well-known outside the Beltway, or even inside the Beltway. They are the ordinary people who...