BOB EDWARDS, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Bob Edwards.
Senator Hillary Clinton's new book, "Living History," has become the
fastest-selling adult, non-fiction book ever. It's allowed the publisher, Simon
& Schuster, to quickly recoup the $8 million advance it paid her. Clinton
talked with NPR senior correspondent Juan Williams.
JUAN WILLIAMS reporting:
The Democratic senator from New York was relaxed and gregarious, a sharp
contrast with her White House days. She sips hot tea to soothe her overworked
vocal cords, and she literally kicked off her shoes and stayed twice as long as
she had planned. She started by reading the opening lines from her book.
Senator HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (Democrat, New York): (Reading) `I wasn't born a
first lady or a senator. I wasn't born a Democrat. I wasn't born a lawyer or an
advocate for women's rights and human rights. I wasn't born a wife or a mother.
I was born an American in the middle of the 20th century, a fortunate time and
place. I was free to make choices unavailable to past generations of women in
my own country and inconceivable to many women in the world today.'
WILLIAMS: You know, so many people who are reading the book are reading it for
not that kind of inspiration and idealism but reading it, really, for bitter
personal experience that you went through at the White House. Do you find that
somewhat of a contradiction?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, what I'm finding now, after the first burst of publicity
and everybody flipping to the index to look under certain letters, is that
people are now coming up to me and thanking me for the book. They're actually
reading the book, and I'm very grateful for that because it is a story that has
many parts, like most people's lives.
WILLIAMS: In fact, on the back of the book, there's some wonderful pictures of
you, pictures of you from being the infant Hillary...
Sen. CLINTON: Right.
WILLIAMS: ...to being a young woman with huge glasses...
Sen. CLINTON: Right.
WILLIAMS: ...and funny hair and then...

 SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER
WILLIAMS: ...of course, to the very coiffed and put-together you now. In a
sense, you represent the feminine ideal for a generation of white American
women.
Sen. CLINTON: Well, I don't know that I would say `ideal.' Obviously for me, I
look at these pictures, and it's a series of snapshots of my life.
WILLIAMS: Right.
Sen. CLINTON: And I'm always amused when people, still today, are trying to
pigeonhole women. We have to be either-or. We can't be both-and. What I tried
to argue and what I've tried to live in my own way is that there is no rulebook
anymore. And women who choose to lead traditional lives deserve the respect
that that choice brings. Yet there isn't any reason for us to look at another
woman who makes the choice perhaps not to marry or not to have children,
believing it is right for her--and to say that that's wrong, it's different and
that the vast majority of us do what I've tried to do, which is a balancing act.
WILLIAMS: And yet you remain sort of the lightning rod, the polarizing figure
in the American mind with regard to what an American woman is. Some say you're
a power seeker. Some feminists would say, `Why did you stand by this man when
he was involved in an illicit affair?' How do you respond to that, coming from
both sides?
Sen. CLINTON: That I have to do what is right for me. I don't ask anyone else
to live my life. I have enough trouble doing that.
WILLIAMS: Well, part of the book I see you--you know, you're talking about
these different roles for women, right?
Sen. CLINTON: Right.
WILLIAMS: You're also a mother.
Sen. CLINTON: Yes.
WILLIAMS: So in a sense that--when I'm reading about the Lewinsky affair and I
hear about your role as a mother, I think even if you are offended, you must be
doubly offended for what happened to your daughter. Were you?
Sen. CLINTON: Of course. I mean, this was a terrible, painful experience for my
whole family. And I've worked very hard to decide what was right for me and my

 family. When we entered into counseling, we not only focused on the present, we
obviously focused on the past. And we went through whether or not we wanted to
remain married. And this relationship has been tried and tested, and it gives
me an enormous amount of support and satisfaction and pleasure. And as I write
about my husband, he is a force of nature. I knew that when I met him. I
married him with my eyes open. I knew that this was one of the most energizing,
interesting, larger-than-life people I'd ever met. And I can only say that for
me, meeting and marrying Bill and choosing to stay married to him when I did
were the right choices.
WILLIAMS: And have you told him, `This is it, bud. You've had your last chance.
If you do this again, I'm out of here'?
Sen. CLINTON: Well, let me just say that I am going to try, as best as
possible, to keep my conversations going forward with my husband between us.
But, you know, we're having a good time.
WILLIAMS: So, in a way, the book is an act of self-discovery and helping you to
close things out. But there are people, especially in the political class in
Washington, who say, `Oh,' you know, `look, Hillary Clinton wrote this book to
inoculate herself as she goes forward. She can now say to anybody who ever asks
her about the Clinton scandals, "Oh, my gosh, I wrote a whole book about that.
Let's move on."'
Sen. CLINTON: I have learned, perhaps the hard way but nevertheless, over the
years that I just have to do what I think is the right thing for me to do
because there are so many different people with so many different agendas. And
you couldn't get out of bed in the morning if you listened to what everybody
else was saying or assessing. Obviously this book, to me, is my best attempt to
lay out how I viewed the White House years. In some respects, it is a closing
of a chapter, and I think that everybody wants to move on. I certainly have an
incredible job and an opportunity now to be part of helping to make history in
the Senate, and that's what I'm focused on.
WILLIAMS: Now I know you said you have no plans to run for president in 2004.
But I'm wondering, if the economy continues to sag, is there a point at which
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is by far the choice of Democratic voters to run
for president, might say, `You know what? I'm going to do it'?
Sen. CLINTON: No. I cannot foresee that. I want to serve out my term. I want to
do the best job I can as senator. But I am increasingly speaking out because I
am very worried about the direction of our country. I think increasingly the
administration's power grab on so many fronts is trying to implement a very
radical right-wing agenda.
WILLIAMS: Do you regret having voted to authorize the president to go to war
against Iraq?

 Sen. CLINTON: From my perspective, the vote I made, which was a very difficult
vote, was based on my assessment of the evidence presented to me. In my mind,
the jury is still out as to whether or not that evidence merited my vote or
anyone else's.
WILLIAMS: We're talking weapons of mass destruction?
Sen. CLINTON: We're talking weapons of mass destruction. But I knew, from my
husband's administration, that he certainly received the same kind of
intelligence reports that here was a man who was intent, obsessed with having
weapons of mass destruction. He had thrown the inspectors out in '98. He
certainly acted like someone who had something to hide. So I'm not ready to say
either that the intelligence was wrong or that the intelligence was selectively
applied and skewed for a certain result. But I think it is essential that we
get to the bottom of whether or not either of those were true because this is
not only about the past.
WILLIAMS: But let me clarify something. You're saying President Clinton got
exactly the same kind of information that President Bush got. So why doubt it?
Sen. CLINTON: Because I think you have to ask yourself, `If there was even
consistent intelligence going through a number of years, and yet we cannot find
the evidence'--and certainly I was given classified briefings about what we
thought we would find--`I want to know, who are the people giving us this
information?' Because this administration has taken a very aggressive posture.
You know, they talk about preemption. Therefore, I'm concerned that when I'm
given information, it is as scrubbed and accurate as it possibly can be,
especially when I see an administration that is willing to, you know, go a
little further perhaps to pursue what they view as appropriate means to achieve
ends that I may or may not agree with.
WILLIAMS: New York Senator and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on her
new book, "Living History." The full interview, including more from Senator
Clinton on White House scandals, health care and the political challenge now
facing the Democrats, are at npr.org.
Juan Williams, NPR News, Washington.
EDWARDS: It's 11 minutes before the hour.
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