Hillary Clinton book goes far and near

Saturday, June 7, 2014

In her memoir Hard Choices, Hillary Rodham Clinton writes about the United States' troubled "reset" with Russia, says her vote authorizing the war in Iraq was "wrong," calls Syria a "wicked problem" and provides a timetable of the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to CBS News, which obtained a copy of the book before its scheduled publication next week.

But Clinton also weaves personal tales among the political observations. She writes about her husband's first dance with their daughter, Chelsea, at her wedding and the friendship she developed with President Barack Obama after their contentious Democratic primary fight in 2008. It felt like "two teenagers on an awkward first date, taking a few sips of chardonnay," she says.

Clinton also acknowledges "opening the door to negotiations with the Taliban" that eventually led to the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. She said she knew that the talks "would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war."

In discussing her role as secretary of state -- a job she left last year -- Clinton describes President Vladimir Putin of Russia as "thin-skinned and autocratic, resenting criticism and eventually cracking down on dissent and debate."

She says her vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq, when she was a senator from New York, came to weigh on her.

"With every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake," she writes, became "more painful."

The memoir is being published by Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. It will be officially released Tuesday.

The rollout of Hard Choices has been carefully orchestrated with a lineup of sit-down interviews. It began with a People magazine cover story that hit newsstands this week, and Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News will be broadcast Monday night. Clinton will also talk to CNN, Fox News and NBC.

A nationwide book tour will begin Tuesday at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in New York City's Union Square. There is speculation that the tour is laying the groundwork for a possible 2016 presidential campaign.

Excerpts from Hard Choices were also released in advance to Vogue magazine and published on the book's website and Facebook page, along with a video message from Clinton about the "hard choices" all Americans face. And last week, Politico published parts of Clinton's chapter on the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. Republicans in Congress are investigating the Obama administration's response to the attack.

Readers looking for clues about Clinton's plans for the future will have to read until page 595. "Will I run for president in 2016?" she writes in the book's final pages. "The answer is, I haven't decided yet."

A Section on 06/07/2014