Clift started her career at Newsweek magazine as a secretary. Eventually she became a reporter in the Atlanta bureau, covering then-governor Jimmy Carter, of Georgia. After he was elected president in 1976, Clift became Newsweek's White House correspondent. In 1984 she covered the Reagan administration for the Los Angeles Times. She returned to Newsweek a year later as a congressional and political correspondent. In 1992 she was reassigned to the White House. Currently Newsweek's deputy Washington bureau chief and a contributing editor, Clift is a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group, a syndicated TV show, and a political analyst for the Fox News Network. Clift has played herself in several movies, and on the TV show Murphy Brown. She lives in Washington with her second husband, Tom Brazaitis, Washington bureau chief for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. They have written two books together, War Without Bloodshed: The Art of Politics (1996) and Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling, (2000). She is also contributing editor to More, a magazine for women over 40.