STEPHEN LEWIS dips into the former president's autobiography.

NO doubt Bill Clinton would like to be remembered as one of the great US presidents. In many ways perhaps he was: a man of legendary charisma who brought a new economic optimism to his own country and bestrode the world stage like a colossus.

He was the US president who went into Bosnia and Kosovo in an attempt to prevent ethnic cleansing; and he came closer than anyone else to forging a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine.

In the court of public opinion, however, little of that matters. Clinton's presidency is defined by one woman: and it is not his wife.

Just how sensitive the former president is on the subject of Monica Lewinsky became clear in his head-to-head Panorama interview with David Dimbleby last week. Pressed by the interviewer on his relationship with the former White House intern, he launched into an angry diatribe against the media, blaming them for hounding him and those closest to him while never once questioning the motives of people such as the Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

"You gave him a complete free ride," he said. "Any abuse they wanted to do. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas - what did you care about them, they're not famous, who cares that their life was trampled? Who cares that their children are humiliated?

"Nobody in your line of work cared a rip about that at the time. Why? Because he was helping their story. People like you always help the far right, because you like to hurt people."

There may even be an element of truth in that. What really doesn't play well, however, is Clinton's dismissive, almost contemptuous, attitude to the young woman whose life he effectively destroyed.

That callous reference to her as "that woman - Miss Lewinsky" at the height of the scandal shocked, and things are not much better in his book. Even his expressions of penitence and regret come across as somehow self-serving.

"In February 1997, Monica at least he has the grace to use her first name was among the guests at an evening taping of my weekly radio address, after which I met with her alone again for about 15 minutes," he writes. "I was disgusted with myself for doing it, and in the spring, when I saw her again, I told her that it was wrong for me, wrong for my family, and wrong for her, and I couldn't do it any more."

Disgusted with himself - and yet despite his remorse, how little genuine sympathy or feeling he demonstrates towards the young intern herself.

Just because he may not be a particularly nice man, however, didn't stop him from being an effective president. The autobiographies of politicians tend to be a little dull, self-serving and one sided. Nevertheless, in these 950-plus pages, you have one of the fullest accounts ever written of the day-to-day job of being the most powerful man in the world. Just be aware you're only getting the story Clinton wants you to hear.

Updated: 09:33 Wednesday, June 30, 2004