Wallace’s presidential ambition

Before he retires from “60 Minutes,” Mike Wallace seems to have a better shot at interviewing the president of Iran than the president of the United States.

It’s not an obsession -- more like a frustration -- but the 87-year-old Wallace, who has interviewed every sitting president since Kennedy, is renewing his effort to sit down with President Bush.

“I’ve never even shaken hands with the man,” said Wallace, who announced last week he was retiring this spring as a correspondent for the CBS newsmagazine.

He expressed optimism about getting to talk soon to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Such an interview would recall one of his career triumphs: his 1979 interview with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini following the taking of American hostages.