Clinton regrets not capturing bin Laden

NEW YORK - Former Bill Clinton is telling a litany of presidential anecdotes — both personal and political — recalling his White House years in a series of introspective interviews timed to the release of his memoir.

He renews a public acknowledgment of personal weakness in the affair with Monica Lewinsky but states anew his belief that Kenneth Starr was overzealous in going after him.

On the policy front, Clinton told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that he regretted failing to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians and that he wasn’t able to capture terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

“I’m sorry on the home front that we didn’t get health care and that we didn’t reform Social Security,” the former president said in the Sunday interview.

He talked to CBS, as well as other news organizations, in advance of Tuesday’s release of his 957-page book, “My Life.”

Former press secretary Dee Dee Myers, said Monday she thought the people who liked Clinton all along would embrace his memoir, while his opponents criticize it.

“This is the first time we’ve seen that much introspection,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show. “Oddly, he would have been better off to write the book 10 years from now.”

Myers suggested Clinton might have given shortshrift treatment to the historical record relating to his policies in a book in which he spends considerable energy discussing his early life, his conflicts, personal torment and lapses in judgment.

She said Clinton’s account “would have been better, more integrated, more interesting, if he’d given it more time.”

Asked if she thought Clinton was trying to set up his wife, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, for a run for the presidency, Myers replied, “No, I don’t think that was his purpose. I think he’s taken a shot at shaping his own legacy. I think he’s made some progress but fell short in other areas.”

Free video June 20: Journalists Joe Klein, Robert Novak and Katty Kay discuss Clinton’s new book. Meet the Press

Clinton shied away from harshly criticizing President Bush on Iraq, although he did say in the CBS interview that he thought it was an error to fail to let the United Nations finish its weapons-inspection program in Iraq.

On the Middle East, Clinton placed the blame for the collapse of his efforts to broker a peace deal squarely on the shoulders of Yasser Arafat — sharing Bush’s view on that issue. “This was an error of historic proportions,” he said of Arafat’s refusal to accept formulas for peace offered by Clinton in late 2000.

The former president says his worst day in the White House came when he had to tell his wife, Hillary, about his affair. “I had a sleepless night and woke her up and sat down on the side of the bed and just told her,” he said. “It was awful.”

When asked about some of the not-so-flattering nicknames ascribed to the former president, Clinton said he most dislikes “Slick Willy.” “No one could fairly look at my political life and say I didn’t believe in anything.”