Barbara Walters interview kicks off Clinton book tour

? There were no jaw-droppers in a just-released excerpt from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new memoir, “Living History,” nor startling revelations in her interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters that was broadcast Sunday night. Rather, the Democratic senator from New York offered more texture and color to the now-familiar story of her life — particularly the eight years she was living in the White House with her husband, President Clinton.

The long excerpt in Time magazine revisited what the former first lady portrays as an ugly time in her marriage, after she learned her husband had lied to her about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. But Clinton also insisted that while her husband’s behavior was morally wrong, she did not feel that he in any way betrayed the American public.

The memoir, published by Simon & Schuster, goes on sale today at bookstores across the country and overseas. The senator launched a book tour in New York over the weekend that will continue intermittently for the next six months, whenever she has a break in her Senate schedule.

Many of the passages in the book provide frank details of her life. She writes about her struggles with her strong-willed father, and how she had a hard time relating to her flamboyant mother-in-law, the late Virginia Ellis.

However, there is little new in her assessment of her political course, her time in the White House or her descriptions of Bill Clinton’s enemies.

For example, she told Walters she remained convinced that there was and is a “very well-financed, right-wing network of people — it’s not really conspiracy because it’s pretty much out in the light of day — that was after his presidency from the very beginning.”

Clinton’s book does not voice many regrets. At one point, she writes that she and the president, during his first term, were probably too ambitious in thinking they could reform the American health-care system. “Our most critical mistake was trying to do too much, too fast,” she said.

In August, Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit a Johnson County bookstore to sign copies of her new book, “Living History.” She is scheduled to be at Rainy Day Books, 2706 W. 53rd St. in Fairway, at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 12

The Clintons’ relationship, she said, hit a low in August 1998 — two days before the president testified about his affair with Lewinsky before a grand jury. Up until then, he had told her the relationship was not inappropriate. When he finally did come clean, she said, she shouted at him: “What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?”

When asked by Walters what she would do if she caught her husband being unfaithful again, Clinton said that topic was none of the public’s business. “That will be between us and that will be that zone of privacy that I believe in,” she said. “But right now I’m very, very hopeful and very committed to our marriage and our relationship.”

Clinton reiterated what she has said previously about her political future: that she has no plans to run for president in 2008. But her language left open the possibility for her to change her mind.