Chelsea: “She’s smart, she’s charming, and she’s got the last name Clinton”

File:US Navy 110401-N-KD852-385 Chelsea Clinton, left, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton att.jpg. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist John Lill/Released. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, wikimedia.org.

In Amy Chozick’s article about Chelsea Clinton in the NY Times Fashion and Style section, Chelsea is referred to in passing as Bill and Hillary’s greatest achievement. I followed the Times’ front-page link to the article without noticing it was in the Fashion and Style section, and I’m glad I did because it turned out to be a substantive and interesting profile of Chelsea, who by the way, the accompanying photos reveal as a very stylish and attractive young woman.

Chozick writes:

OVER a series of casual dinners at neighborhood restaurants near her Flatiron District apartment in the spring, Chelsea Clinton began talking to a couple of longtime friends about something she’d been mulling for a while.

It was quite an assertion from someone who — despite the very public profile of her parents, one a former president and the other the current secretary of state — had lived most of her 31 years at a far remove from the spotlight. 

Yes, there had been sightings of Chelsea over the years, as she grew from a gangly, curly-haired teenager into the confident, stylishly dressed woman making the social scene in her adopted home, New York. And, yes, her marriage to Marc Mezvinsky landed the happy couple on the cover of People magazine — and then later on Page Six when rumors circulated that there might be marital problems. 

But for the most part, Ms. Clinton seemed determined to keep her private life strictly private, refusing to speak to the news media and requesting the same from her loyal inner circle. Now, however, talk turned to the notion that if she was going to face the downside of being the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, under the constant scrutiny of the news media, why not also take advantage of the upside? 

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