Bill and Hillary Clinton Turn Out to be Good Neighbors in Chappaqua

Once Again, “If Only” Rises Up With Respect to the Clinton Legacy

At the end of the Clinton Presidency Mrs. Clinton decided she wanted electoral office.  The Clintons moved to suburban New York so she could establish New York residency and run for the Senate.  Despite losing the Presidential nomination to Mr. Obama, things have turned out well for both Clintons.

It was widely considered a strategic move to a politically appropriate suburban address when the Clintons, on the eve of Mrs. Clinton’s 2000 Senate run, bought the Dutch colonial on Old House Lane for $1.7 million. (They pay just over $50,000 a year in property taxes.) Since then, Bill Clinton has gone from embattled president to Democratic icon and head of an international foundation. Mrs. Clinton has gone from first lady to senator to presidential contender to secretary of state.nton

And it has also turned out that the Clinton’s sincerely embraced their new home.

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

The Clintons, who have lived in Chappaqua, N.Y., for more than a decade, attended Memorial Day ceremonies on Monday.

 It might be assumed that Secretary of StateHillary Rodham Clinton has more pressing items on her to-do list than making it each year to the local Memorial Day Parade.  But, sure enough, there was Mrs. Clinton in a tan suit and jaunty straw hat marching down King Street on Monday with the local office holders, as her husband, the former president, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who lives in neighboring Mount Kisco, trailed a bit behind.

“I put this on my calendar every year, and I basically tell my staff I really, really, really want to do this,” Mrs. Clinton said on Monday. “So unless there’s some crisis of significant proportions, I’ll be here, and I’ve had a few crises where I’ve had to take phone calls as I’ve marched. Next week I’m going to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, but I said, ‘That is going to happen after Memorial Day, no matter what.’ ”

And that the Clinton’s have become the type of neighbors we would all like to have.

“Every person to the person who has met them will say how warm and welcoming and lovely and genuinely interested in other people they have been,” said Kendall Callahan, who just opened what she calls an interactive health bar called Kendall’s Om Kitchen next to Santa’s Salon. “They’re around town,” she added. “They support local merchants. They’ve been great neighbors.”

No one including this author would have envisioned this 12 years ago, And it brings to mind the tragedy of the Clinton Presidency, the foray into health care reform that destroyed Mr. Clinton politically and the Monica situation which destroyed Mr. Clinton’s reputation as a good person.  But now it seems both Clintons have shown their true colors, and that they are pretty good people. And had they understood the politics of the health care reform they proposed and had Mr. Clinton’s personal life gone down a different road, a good Presidency might have been a great Presidency.