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CNN Live Sunday

Former President Clinton Copes With Empty Nest, ATM Machines

Aired April 29, 2001 - 16:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: It's 100 days in office for President Bush, but for his predecessor, it's the first 100 days out of office after eight years at the helm. Garrick Utley now with a look at how the former president has been holding up.

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GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Remember when news about Bill Clinton was in our face every day? Those questionable pardons which are still being investigated by federal prosecutors; the brother-in-law who lobbied to obtain presidential pardons; the sky- high Manhattan office building with a sky-high rent; not to mention the White House as the Clinton's home furniture depot.

Bill Clinton's legacy seemed to losing balance; not just on television. But now, public silence surrounds him. Television camera crews that used to stand here outside the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York, and follow his every move, have gone. Suddenly, Bill Clinton was no longer news.

JOE LOCKHART, CLINTON WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: ...and there was not probably a happier day for the former president and people who work with him and support him.

UTLEY: Joe Lockhart, who was President Clinton's White House spokesman, stays in touch.

LOCKHART: Someone who is in the center of public life for a long time, it's very hard to go off it, cold turkey.

UTLEY: Perhaps the hardest adjustment for Bill Clinton has been to ordinary life. After two decades of government housing where somebody else did the shopping and ran the errands.

LOCKHART: He's proudly called many of us and told us how he's mastered very complicated things like the Palm Pilot, the ATM card, he makes his own phone calls now.

UTLEY: How badly does Bill Clinton miss his former job, the attention, the adulation? We can only guess. Now he is busy. There he was in India to support the rebuilding of villages destroyed in the January earthquake. There he was this past week in South Africa to support the building of more civil society. Then, there have been the speeches that bring up to $100,000 each and there is the less expensive 8,000 square foot office space in New York's Harlem, that Clinton will move into in July.

Of course, there's the other side of the Bill Clinton as former president story. There's the Hillary Clinton as new U.S. Senator story. The Clintons are now a one-career family, hers.

Most of her week spent in Washington. The weekends fill up, keeping in touch with the voters back in New York state.

LOCKHART: They see each other at some point during the week and some point during the weekend and are always in touch.

UTLEY: Bill Clinton's calendar for May is filled with trips to China and Europe. Still, with a wife away at work, and a daughter at college, home can be an empty nest. But the public quiet that now surrounds Bill Clinton is a welcome relief for him, for us.

Garrick Utley, CNN, Chappaqua, New York.

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