Spinning history.

• Author: Waldman, Michael
• Position: Political Booknotes

POWER PLAYS: Win or Lose--How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game by Dick Morris Regan Books, $25.95

WHEN I WORKED IN THE White House for Bill Clinton, I would console new colleagues who were frustrated when the president didn't seem to always acknowledge their presence. "Remember," I would tell them. "He's been in this for a long time. To him we're just a blur in a blue suit." Dick Morris, plainly, was not a blur in a blue suit. For starters, unless my memory fails me, his suits weren't usually blue. Often they were neon, garish, outlandish, very much not what Clark Clifford would have worn. George Stephanopoulos, in his book, describes Morris as looking like a mob lawyer. Morris's presentations inevitably were mesmerizing. They were given with absolute certitude, a staccato recitation of poll numbers, grand strategy, and historical analogies. He would spin out a scenario whereby the Republicans on Capitol Hill would fragment into "hun-tergatherers." He would declaim a certain date by which a budget deal would be reached--then, as that date slipped past, announce another with equal conviction.

His predictions were wrong as often as they were right; his poll-obsessions and willingness to work for racist Jesse Helms verged on nihilism. But, on the very biggest strategic questions, Morris gave Clinton advice that helped save his presidency. He understood that Clinton had blurred his political identity as a New Democrat in his first two years in office. Morris intuited, too, that success as Chief Executive sometimes required confounding, bold action, such as, say, defying your congressional party to back a balanced budget and sign welfare reform. He understood the power of the presidential bully pulpit and encouraged Clinton to use it. His grasp of tactics was far less sure. "I am the kind of person who sees far off in the horizon, but trips over chairs in front of me," he once explained to me. These strengths and weaknesses are echoed in his columns and Fox News analyses: They are fascinating, closely argued, and sometimes wildly wrong.

So there was reason to expect Power Plays to be interesting, Put it this way: I would not go to Dick Morris for a tutorial on moral theory, or even on the day-to-day maneuvering by which most political change occurs. But he does have a sure touch for divining politicians' larger strategic patterns. This book looks at the experiences of 19 leaders, from the U.S. and abroad, and shows how they sought...