WEEKEND MEMOS

'Weekend memos' give our editorial writers a chance to express their own opinions, comment on topics they have been writing about, or take a lighter approach. The opinions in 'Memos' do not always follow the Enquirer's editorial positions.

I will be among those who will help Hillary Rodham Clinton's book publisher recoup the reported $8 million advance paid to the former first lady-turned senator from New York.

I'm going to read Living History, Hillary's 576-page memoir, in book stores Monday.

Why? Like millions of other Americans, I want to know Hillary's side of the story.

I want to know if she will or can clarify how an administration that promised to be the most ethical in history turned out to be exactly the opposite, right down to its last days, when the former president pardoned fugitive tycoon Marc Rich. Later, Denise Rich, Marc's ex-wife, gave the Clintons furniture valued at more than $7,000.

Will she talk about firing the White House Travel Office staff? Vince Foster? Monica? Paula? Whitewater? The "vast right-wing conspiracy"?

Let's hope so.

Scandals aside, I want to think better of her, as I did years ago as a young reporter in Little Rock, Ark., when Bill Clinton was the boy "education" governor and before Hillary became lightning rod for the left. Even back then, however, Hillary took heat from the locals, because she wanted to keep her maiden name.

The public this week has been teased with the revelation that she discusses the president's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Simon & Schuster has printed 1 million copies, almost unprecedented for a non-fiction read. At $28 a pop S&S will get its money back. USA Today reported the book will be published in at least 17 other languages.

Hillary's first book, 1996's It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, was a best seller. She even won a Grammy for its recorded version.

None of us wants to read about Hillary staying at home baking cookies.

A book by Hillary causes buzz not only because people hope she'll take on the White House scandals, but precisely because she is a pistol: A Yale law school-educated, politically savvy, power-hungry, enigmatic - sometimes even sympathetic - figure, who stood by her flawed man while gaining political stature of her own.

Byron McCauley