Clinton's Memoirs Not Unlike Other Presidential Apologias

Bill Clinton bounded back into the nation's consciousness this week, hawking his memoirs, sharing his"demons" and seeking to reclaim his place on the national political stage. Yet after more than three years, a $10-million advance and 957 pages to reflect on his life, Clinton remains the flawed figure who left the White House in 2001.

If My Life is the 42nd president's stab at public redemption, he'll need more time to work on it.

Like the character who emerges from his memoirs, the same old Clinton took to the talk-show circuit all this week: politically astute, ethically challenged and passionately divisive. He fascinates and infuriates Americans, who approve of the job he did more than of the person he is, according to a Washington Post /ABC News Poll released this week. Conservative commentators bashed him, and some reviewers panned his book. Yet, adoring fans showed up at midnight to be the first in line when the book went on sale Tuesday morning.

The book reveals anew Clinton's signature"I didn't inhale" manner of skirting the truth; he takes responsibility with one hand and casts it off with the other.

Notably, Clinton admits in his book that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was"immoral and foolish" and hurt his family, the presidency and the American people."That," he writes,"was no one's fault but my own." Good as far as it goes. But in the next breath, he blames his impeachment on a right-wing cabal led by prosecutor Ken Starr bent on bringing him down.

While Clinton writes that he is learning forgiveness, he eagerly takes jabs at Starr and other Republican enemies on the U.S. Supreme Court and in Congress.

He overlooks the central fact about his impeachment: It was not about infidelity, but lying under oath and to the American people.

In ducking full responsibility for his downfall, Clinton is not unlike predecessors who failed to repaint tainted presidencies. Such accounts, historian Richard Norton Smith says, are"faulty vehicles" for rewriting history.

Herbert Hoover tried to absolve himself of responsibility for the Depression. Richard Nixon sought to bury Watergate, but never owned up to the depths of his involvement in the scandal. In fact, his take on his undoing was eerily similar to Clinton's....