Eleanor Clift

Eleanor Clift, a key member of the Newsweek political team since 1994, regularly reports on the Washington power structure, the influence of women in politics, and other issues. She is currently assigned to Capitol Hill, where she is covering policy and politics in the Republican-controlled Congress and the emerging contenders for the 2008 Presidential nomination in the the Republican and Democratic parties. Her column, “Capitol Letter,” is posted each week on Newsweek.com and MSNBC.com. Formerly Newsweek’s White House correspondent, Ms. Clift also served as congressional and political correspondent for six years. She was a key member of the magazine’s 1992 election team and followed Bill Clinton’s campaign from the start to inauguration. In June 1992, she was named Deputy Washington Bureau chief. According to Brill’s Content, a journalism review, Ms. Clift is one of the most accurate predictors among the pundits on the political talk shows. As a reporter in Newsweek’s Atlanta bureau, Clift covered Jimmy Carter’s bid for the Presidency. She followed Carter to Washington to become Newsweek’s White House correspondent, a position she held until 1985. Clift began her career as a secretary to Newsweek’s National Affairs editor in New York. She was one of the first women at the magazine to move from secretary to reporter. She left Newsweek briefly in 1985 to serve as White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and she returned the following year to cover the Iran-Contra scandal, which tarnished the Ronald Reagan White House. Now a political analyst for the Fox News Network, Clift is even more visible, emerging from behind the writer’s notepad to the television screen, where she appears as a regular panelist on the nationally syndicated show, The McLaughlin Group. She is also co-chair of the board of the International Women’s Media Foundation. She has made television appearances on ABC’s “Nightline,” “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “The Today Show,” CNN’s “Crossfire,” and CBS’s comedy “Murphy Brown.” Playing herself, Eleanor has appeared in several films, including “Independence Day,” “Murder at 1600 Pennsylvania,” “Rising Sun,” and “Dave.” Clift and her late husband, Tom Brazaitis, who was a columnist for the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, co-authored “Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling” (Scribner, 2000) and “War Without Bloodshed: The Art of Politics” (Scribner, 1996). Clift is also a contributing editor to “More,” a magazine aimed at women aged 40 and older.