Aboard Airforce One: 200,000 Miles With a White House Aide.

They're on every campaign--the fresh-faced twenty- and thirty-somethings who herd the press from one event to another, who make sure the motorcade gets where it's going who make sure the candidate has his beloved Diet Coke by his side. Ken Chitester was one of those campaign types. An Indiana native working in Arkansas, he signed on to the Clinton campaign in 1992. When Clinton took office, Chitester wrangled a job with the news analysis group in the White House, the people who put together the newspaper clips about Clinton. Each morning the inch-thick stack compendium of clips is read by major honchos in the White House. For someone like Chitester, it was a heady experience--despite the drudgery of the work, it afforded him a proximity to power that few pols ever know.

Still, the long hours took their toll. "I came to realize that working at the White House is like eating chocolate cake, no matter how delicious you think it is, if you eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week, 365 days a year, you will get sick of it" That may sound like hubris. But after reading this entertaining diary you'll agree. The mind-numbing procession of 4:30 a.m. wake up calls, 10,000-mile plane rides, and staff bickering are enough to make anyone tired. Because the clips are so valuable, Chitester wound up on virtually every presidential flight using his laptop computer to get the latest news reports.

Despite his access, Chitester--who I knew casually when I was covering the White House--doesn't dish much dirt. His former colleagues and the Clintons will continue to like him. But even if there's nothing scandalous here, there are plenty of interesting observations about the life of a staffer. "It was amazing how seriously people took the packages of news clippings we produced each morning," he writes. "A lot of folks got them who didn't even need them--they just wanted to be on the distribution list because somebody else was, and they didn't want to be left out. The insecurity people had there, their defensiveness and addiction to perks and perceived power, never ceased to amaze me" As for Clinton himself, Chitester has all the conventional observation about the president's stamina, appetite, intelligence. Still, it's amazing to be reminded that the leader of the free world greets people by saying: "Hey, man, how's it goin'?"

On one level, this is a likable tale about an unpretentious guy--while in Tokyo a homesick Chitester eats at Denny's--who makes it to the Big Show. But it's also a depressing reminder that much of the presidency has become a giant road production--a cavalcade of showy trips designed to get good press. In theory, it's important for the president to get out of Washington. But whenever Air Force One lifts up from Andrews, the president is so isolated--as are his staff and the press corps--that they might as well be in a TV studio. The hermetically sealed world of the president is probably inevitable. And yet it's hard not to feel deep nostalgia for the Truman era when the aides were fewer and when the president crossed the street to Blair House he did it by himself without a bevy of sycophants. Two other points: Chitester's book is also an important reminder that politics and campaigns remain a pretty meritocratic endeavor where kids from modest backgrounds and state colleges can find themselves in exciting positions. And there is this truism: The Clinton White House can be a casually cruel place. Just as Harold Ickes, the president's friend of 25 years had to read in the paper that he was out on his rear, Chitester had a similarly inelegant departure. When he decided to leave the White House, he tried to resign--but couldn't get anyone to return his calls.

Matthew Cooper, a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, is a national correspondent for Newsweek.