DEEP INTO THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY, THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WAS PAINFULLY HIGH, THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR HAD WIDENED, AND THE STIMULUS HAD NOT DONE ENOUGH TO BRING JOBS BACK. WHAT WENT WRONG? FACING THE WORST ECONOMY SINCE THE 1930S, President Obama hired a crack team of escape artists: financial wizards who had pulled off numerous whiteknuckle getaways during the Clinton era. But this time, they fell far short. ''The Escape Artists ''reveals why. Star White House journalist Noam Scheiber delivers a gripping narrative of the Obama presidency and the mistakes and missed opportunities that kept his pedigreed team from steering the economy in the right direction. With previously undisclosed internal documents and extensive, original reporting from the highest levels of the administration, Scheiber reveals how the very qualities that made these men and women escape artists in the 1990s ultimately failed them.