NY Weekly Gets Scoop on Clinton Book and '60 Minutes' Interview

By: E&P Staff With dozens of heavyweight newspapers, magazines and TV networks scrambling to be first to divulge the content of Bill Clinton's forthcoming memoir, the first report seems to have emerged from an unlikely source: the cheeky weekly The New York Observer. This morning's edition includes an interview with CBS News anchor Dan Rather, one of the few to actually possess the 975-page tome "My Life" because of his hour-long "60 Minutes" interview with the ex-President set for June 20.

"Maybe he didn't come totally, absolutely clean with himself, but he made an effort to do it," Rather told the newspaper's Joe Hagan, "an effort it would be difficult to find with any former President."

Still, Rather "liked it more than I thought I would, more than I was prepared to like it. Who knew that Bill Clinton could write this well?" He added: "As presidential memoirs go, on a five-star scale, I give it five."

Rather also revealed that in his "60 Minutes" interview, already taped, Clinton didn't attempt to avoid the Monica Lewinsky-related questions. "He made no effort to cut it short, or brush aside any question," Rather disclosed, "and he said, 'I'm not making any excuses. I have no excuse and as far as I'm able to explain it to myself, here's my explanation.' There are very few people in public life who can do that on camera."

But as for the book, while Rather praised the first half, which deals with the first part of his life and career, he appears less enthralled with the second half, which tackles his presidency and the Lewinsky scandal. "I didn't find it as rich or as revealing as I found the first half," he said. "On this most critical stuff, frankly, I think people would make a mistake if they went to that immediately. I think a lot of people will. There's a lot of that in it."

Was Mr. Clinton, Hagen asked, critical enough of his actions while president of the United States? "In some portions, yes," said Rather. "In some ways, I thought he was surprisingly, if not remarkably, so. But that is not to say that he is hard on himself about everything everybody thinks he should be hard on himself about."