Hillary Clinton has launched her new book with the kind of coast-to-coast tour that has all the trappings of a political campaign, ranging from television interviews to appearances in megamalls.

Hard Choices was a publishing phenomenon even before its release yesterday, with 1m copies pre-ordered by retailers. Whether it will be a political phenomenon is still to be tested. Her book carries the trappings of a classic Washington genre – books written by politicians that seek to neuter potential embarrassments from past political entanglements while preparing the ground for future campaigns.

The former secretary of state, the unofficial favourite as the Democratic presidential candidate for 2016, has used her book to disavow in the clearest terms yet her 2002 vote as a senator to back the Iraq war. That cost her dearly when battling Barack Obama in 2008 for the Democratic nomination.