SPIN CYCLE: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine.

By Howard Kurtz. Free Press. 324 pp. $25

Hoping to discover the secret of President Clinton’s high approval ratings in the face of scandal, Kurtz ventures backstage at the White House press office. A Washington Post reporter, the author finds press secretary Michael McCurry and his staff doing, quite competently, what their recent predecessors have done: leaking stories, awarding exclusives, staging symbolically rich announcements, peddling human interest tales, and, by shying away from learning certain information, maintaining credible deniability. No dazzling innovations here.

Though it’s not the author’s intended message, Spin Cycle ends up teaching us that the White House media manipulators are not all that influential. The news, commentary, and chatter chronicled in this aptly titled book go around and around without having much impact outside the circle of officials and correspondents. The bulk of the explanation for Clinton’s enduring popularity must lie elsewhere—most likely in his own actions, and in the perceptions of those actions out beyond the spinners, in the concentric orbits of partisan politics, government policies, and public opinion.

A siege atmosphere pervades Spin Cycle, suggesting that the scandals will bring down either the president or the media. But big news stories have a perverse way of ending small. Having promised a stark climax, the O. J. Simpson saga closed with two contrary verdicts and a truckload of memoirs. The stand-off that Kurtz details may simply drag on until the president’s term expires. By then, most of the media will have moved on to the next presidential show.

—Michael Cornfield