New Book on Gingrich and Clinton

I am looking forward to reading this book by Steve M. Gillon, which analyzes the relationship between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. The book centers around a meeting that was held between the two in 1997. Here are some excerpts from a review printed in last Friday's Wall Street Journal:

"In "The Pact," Steven M. Gillon focuses on the two current Washington figures whose political reputations are most in need of rehabilitation. The first is Bill Clinton, the only president in modern times to have been impeached and, more recently, the gaffe-prone spouse of a presidential contender. The second is Newt Gingrich. Having become speaker of the House in 1995 – for a while, one of the most powerful speakers in history – Mr. Gingrich left Congress only four years later a defeated figure, distrusted by his caucus and trailed by the news that he, too, had carried on an affair with a member of his staff.'

"Messrs. Clinton and Gingrich were seemingly mortal political enemies, too. But were they really? Mr. Gillon discloses a 1997 meeting between the two whose purpose was to plot the unthinkable: compromise and collaboration. The surreptitious summit took place in an atmosphere of rank partisanship for which Mr. Gingrich could (perhaps proudly) take a great deal of credit."

"The great irony, Mr. Gillon notes, is that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gingrich discovered that they actually liked each other. They were both exhaustingly loquacious politicians and "big idea" men. And both felt at odds with the populist core of their parties. By the summer of 1995, they started meeting regularly and talking on the phone, sometimes several times a day. When word of such amity leaked out, the staff of each side comically scrambled to prevent the two men from spending time alone, fearful that each would sell out his side. Party leaders dispatched Vice President Al Gore and Republican stalwart Dick Armey to act as "minders," charged with keeping the president and the speaker from finding too much common ground."

Full review.