Road to Nowhere The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Healthy Security

"Mr. Hacker concludes with a chapter of analysis that to my mind is totally superfluous. Like his decision to organize the book thematically instead of chronologically, which often undercuts his story's narrative power, this belief that an extra 30 pages of political science terms will illuminate his ideas about how political agendas are set is mistaken. The ideas, whether Mr. Hacker realizes it or not, come through crystal clear in the body of his book. Analysis that's organically embedded in a well-told tale almost always works better than analysis that's added on explicitly to develop theories and models. Still, Mr. Hacker's account, while not whitewashing the President's blunders, usefully reminds us that he was operating under tight constraints. In so doing, 'The Road to Nowhere' should help relieve Bill Clinton of shouldering the whole burden of the debacle, which remains, not altogether fairly, the darkest blot on the record of his first term."Hacker, Jacob S. is the author of 'Road to Nowhere The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Healthy Security' with ISBN 9780691005287 and ISBN 0691005281.