RECORD-BREAKING BILL CLINTON

Despite sparking quite a sharp ideological divide over his legacy, former President Bill Clinton set a record yesterday, selling more than 400,000 copies of his new book, "My Life."

No matter what the "vast right-wing conspiracy" throws at Clinton, he's still loved by a vast swath of Americans who see through the massive 10-year smear campaign against the boy from Hope, Ark.

Curiously, the New York Daily News story highlighted how Clinton was irritated when a BBC reporter asked him about Monica Lewinsky and independent prosecutor and GOP shill Kenneth Starr:

"One of the reasons he [Starr] got away with it is because people like you only ask people like me the questions," Clinton fumed at David Dimbleby of the BBC. "You gave him a complete free ride." ...

Clinton said Susan McDougal, his friend who was jailed and shackled after refusing to answer Starr's questions about the Whitewater land deal, was put in a "Hannibal Lecter-like cell and ... a uniform worn only by murderers and child molesters."

"You should take responsibility for that," he told Dimbleby. "You should say, 'Yes, I care much more about [the Clinton scandals] than whether the Bosnian people were saved."

Young and old, professionals and housewives, black and white, Asian and Latino, men and women of all persuasions waited in the rain yesterday in Midtown Manhattan for a chance to shell out $26 for Clinton's 900-page epic and an autograph.

I was among them.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to approach with anything other than a single copy of his book -- no cameras, etc., so the only photographs I took were beforehand.

He has total rock-star presence, even after having met him twice before (while he was president) in Albuquerque.

I went up to him and said, "You're still MY president."

"It was an honor."