I’m sorry, but this story about Bill Clinton hanging around his (not-much-visited) Presidential Library in Little Rock strikes me as deeply creepy:
Mr. Clinton has been entertaining old friends in the museum’s two-bedroom penthouse apartment, overlooking the Arkansas River. The apartment is also known as the “Executive Suite,” and Mr. Clinton plans to spend an average of one week each month there. He used to bunk at his mother-in-law’s condo before getting the new pad that his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, has not visited since November.
“It’s awesome,” says David Leopoulos, a boyhood friend of Mr. Clinton’s. “Stereo, big-screen TV, lots of technology. It’s really neat.”
The penthouse, which is just beyond Mr. Clinton’s private office — ironically, oval-shaped, is “all glass. And it’s very modern. Ethnic art. And the view is incredible. It’s like floating in air,” says Mr. Leopoulos, 58, who refers to Mr. Clinton as “the Big Kahuna.”
Whether it’s nostalgia for his days in the White House, Mr. Clinton told [aide Skip] Rutherford that “he wants to spend several hours just by himself” roaming the library, which houses the largest collection of presidential papers and artifacts in the United States.
“He will spend time greeting guests at the library. He enjoys that,” says Mr. Rutherford. “I think it’s a thrill for any president to go through your library.”
Mr. Leopoulos says Mr. Clinton “loved” his old job. “If he could be president again tomorrow, he would be.”
No doubt one of Mr. Clinton’s favorite exhibits is the exact replica of the Oval Office, meticulously cloned by Little Rock interior designer Kaki Hockersmith. Miss Hockersmith, who decorated the real Oval Office for Mr. Clinton, even grew the ivy on the fireplace from a cutting of the plant in the actual White House.