NEW YORK – Barbara Walters scored the big interview on Sunday night, the book isn't officially out until Monday, but already New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (search) has received massive publicity for Living History, the much anticipated tale of her life up to and in the White House.
Wednesday's advance clips of the Barbara Walters interview added to the hype, helping to sell advance purchases of the book and putting it in the No. 2 spot on Amazon.com, just behind Harry Potter's latest adventure.
According to published reports, before shipping, the one million first-edition copies of the book had to be stored in a round-the-clock guarded warehouse in New Jersey.
But publisher Simon & Schuster (search) says it is not happy with some of the attention. As part of the $8 million deal with the former first lady, Simon & Schuster planned a big public relations splash for next week, including excerpts published in the newest edition of Time magazine.
Unfortunately, Simon & Schuster says, the Associated Press got a hold of a copy of the book and revealed portions of the tome on the same day ABC ran snippets of the Walters interview.
In AP's "Cliff's Notes" of the book, Clinton wrote that when she found out about her husband's dalliance with then-intern Monica Lewinsky, she said she could "barely speak to Bill and when I did it was a tirade."
The publisher has let the AP know that it is unhappy with the advance headlines and could possibly file a lawsuit against the news agency. Time threatened to pull out printing the excerpt because AP got a jump on the magazine.
But some have questioned whether the leak was a set-up, and add that the threat of legal actions may just be more spin to up book sales.
Others have started questioning whether the book even tells the truth. They claim that Clinton's assertion that she froze her husband out after he finally admitted his affair with Lewinsky doesn't gibe with reporting at the time.
For instance, The Washington Post reported that two days after his admission, both president and first lady huddled in White House legal strategy sessions. Former aide Sidney Blumenthal writes in his book that two days after Mr. Clinton confessed to the Mrs., the two were bantering and "working as a team."
But truth or fiction, if the senator's polls are any indication, the book may not get the reading the publisher hoped.
According to a Fox News-Opinion Dynamics (search) poll, Clinton has a 44 percent favorable and a 47 percent unfavorable rating. That's worse than her fellow New Yorker and presidential candidate Al Sharpton is doing. Nine percent of those polled couldn't rate Clinton at all.
It will be up to readers to decide whether they accept the senator's account, and for $28 they can learn how much she still loves her husband and does not think he betrayed the country.
Fox News' Eric Shawn contributed to this report.
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