Celebrity Mound

Bill and Hillary Clinton are thinking about trading up to a bigger house.

It’s not that Madame Secretary and the former President dislike their place in Chappaqua. But the former First Couple aren’t immune to this buyer’s market.

“Yeah, they’ve been looking around,” a close Clinton pal tells us. “There are huge opportunities now. There are some really massive estates that are incredibly cheap. Plus, it’s a fun way to spend a weekend.”

The last time the Clintons house-hunted, their Brown Harris broker, Kathy Sloane, visited 91 houses in seven counties before they found a place. Sloane declined to comment on whether they’re shopping again. But friends think that this time, the couple wants to stay in Westchester County.

“Westchester is a key battleground in any statewide election,” says another pal. “If Hillary were to leave Westchester, it would be like announcing she’s not going to run again.”

Insiders scoff at speculation that the Clintons are interested in upstate Woodstock. But the ex-President is fond of the town, especially because his Grammy-winning Arkansas buddy, Levon Helm, lives there. The last time the ex-Prez was passing through, we hear, he called up the former Band drummer, but apparently someone at Levon’s studio thought it was a prank.

P.S.: Bill ought to stop by one of the Midnight Ramble performances in Levon’s beautiful barn recording studio, where his sidemen have included Elvis Costello, Donald Fagen, John Hiatt and Ricky Skaggs.

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The former president dropped by the LIFEbeat fashion show in Vienna and chatted up several of the 60 models. “He was quite the hit with them,” our spy said. A rep for Clinton said, “He went from the stage straight to the cars.” Afterward, Bill attended the Life Ball AIDS benefit with Pamela Anderson, Katy Perry, Eva Longoria Parker and Ivana Trump. Thursday, he’s expected at the AmFAR benefit for AIDS research at the Cannes Film Festival emceed by his old friend Sharon Stone, who was reportedly on board Air Force One on May 18, 1993, when Clinton was parked on the tarmac at LAX getting a haircut.

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A feel-good tree-planting event early Tuesday with President Obama and Bill Clinton featured some subtle digs with passive-aggressive humor the weapon of choice, The Post’s Geoff Earle reports. Clinton started things off before the first sapling was planted near the muddy Anacostia River when clean-shoed Obama complained somebody had forgotten his boots. “See? You’re light on your feet,” Clinton quipped to the small crowd, which included Michelle Obama. Obama came back with, “I think the president has pretty good shoveling skills,” which got a laugh from Clinton. Perhaps trying to nudge Clinton along, Obama looked at the hole Clinton had dug, then offered: “Mr. President, I don’t think you can do any better than that.” Clinton said goodbye but then started work on another hole. When a reporter asked why Clinton was planting twice as many trees as anyone else, the man who once mocked Obama’s campaign as a “fairy tale” responded: ” ‘Cause I got twice as much experience as everyone else.”

Check out Bill Clinton’s boots in that photo (above) Hook ‘em Horns baby!

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If Bill Clinton had a say about it, the people of India wouldn’t need to sell their children to make money. According to worldwide reports, the father of “Slumdog Millionaire” child star Rubina Querishi tried to sell his daughter on the black market for $300,000. The “doting” dad was only caught because he tried to sell his kid to an undercover News of the World reporter, who was masquerading as a sheik.

“Yes, we are considering Rubina’s future,” the dad told the disguised tabloid reporter. “I have to consider what’s best for me, my family and Rubina’s future.

Such drastic conditions in India have provoked a strong reaction from Clinton, who offered up a logical solution. “If you saw the Academy Award-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire” [you’d know what I mean]. I was thrilled it won, and I thought it was the best movie I saw [last year],” our former President said during a speech at the Georgetown Global Forum on Friday evening. “But in the opening scene, these kids are playing stickball in the Mumbai airport on the runway while the planes are trying to land and the police come and the kids run off. When the kids run back to the slum, they run over the Mumbai landfill — an endless garbage dump of hundreds and hundreds of acres — and there are people living there scavenging in the dump just looking for something to do. We’re trying to help places [like that] close those dumps and turn them from public nuisance into a moneymaker.” He added that parents like Querishi’s could make a living the right — and legal — way. “The scavengers can make a living as recyclers and earn enough money to make a living,” he finished.

This particular job prospect is a good one for Querishi, who allegedly cited his current lack of funds as the motivating factor for using his child as a meal ticket. “We live in one room, seven of us sleep on the floor. I earn [$3-$4.45] a day,” the young star’s father reportedly said. “We got nothing out of [“Slumdog Millionaire].”

Although this particular case is extreme, the problems in India demand our attention. Said Clinton, “It doesn’t matter what you can’t do, it matters what you can do. Whether we like it or not, it matters to us what happens to to people halfway around the world.” He added, laughing, “Divorce is not an option.”

You’d know better than anyone, Bill!

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During a special taping of “The Martha Stewart Show” (syndicated, see local listings), Martha was joined in studio by former President Bill Clinton. During the hour long episode celebrating President’s Day, which will air Monday, February 16 in honor of the holiday, Clinton discusses his work with the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative, the state of the economy, the challenges faced by President Obama’s new administration and the country’s new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

Clinton on his dog Buddy:

MS: How important was it for you to have Buddy at the White House?

BC: Amazing. Hillary gave me Buddy when Chelsea was going off to Stamford, because she knew that I would be in the tank about it. I was a total wreck when my daughter went to college. I picked a lab because they’re one of the ten most intelligent dogs and they’re highly trainable and they’re kind. I named Buddy after my uncle. Harry Truman once said, ‘If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” So I had a dog.

Clinton on his wife’s new role as Secretary of State:

MS: Your beautiful wife has just been selected Secretary of State. We’re all very proud of her. What do you think her biggest challenges are?

BC: Well, first she has to restore our standing in the world as a trusted leader and partner for peace, security and prosperity, and she has to do it very adverse circumstances because the of the global economic crisis, the apparent paralysis of problems in the Middle East, all the troubles in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so the thing she’s got to do is try to operate on all these fronts but not lose the forest for the tree. And she has to do it in an environment in which normally the President would be more visible overseas, but he has to stay home more.

MS: He’s [Barack Obama] obligated to fix the economy.

BC: Absolutely. So her big challenge is to get and establish the sense of team work in the national security team under the President with all the other players, and then try to get all these things going at once. I think she’s off to a good start and I think he’s off to a good start.

Clinton on Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

MS: What do you hope to achieve this year with the CGI?

BC: Well, its going to be our fifth year when we meet, and what I hope we’ll do is survive the economic storm, and I hope that there will be an effort this time for those who can give to really support the non-government organizations that have been hurt by this downturn.

MS: Even in this hard time, we have to give. I think that’s a good message.

Clinton on the newly elected President, Barack Obama:

MS: What do you think are his [Barack Obama] biggest challenges?

BC: I think he’s got a great team.

MS: Many worked for you!

BC: They did work for me, and they did a good job for me and I think they’re making good decisions. I think…the stimulus bill is absolutely necessary. It’s important that the American people understand that the stimulus bill alone can’t bring the economy back, but it’s a bridge over troubled waters. It’s going to take awhile to fix the banking system. We have a private economy, we’ve got to get the banks lending again and all of that. But this bill will keep state and local governments from laying off hundreds of thousands of people or raising your taxes at a time when we shouldn’t do that. Either will hurt the economic recovery. This bill will help us to build new a energy future that is more independent and create millions of jobs while doing it. So it will help to rebuild America’s infrastructure , something that has been ignored for too long. And it will help us get through this. So I feel good about that. I think the next big challenge he faces is what is the most effective way to get the bad assets off the balance sheets now so banks feel free to loan and to rework as many of these home mortgages as possible, where the people who took the mortgage out and can’t pay it now are honest, hardworking people. What’s the best way to do that? If they can get that right…

MS: And without making them sleep in their cars.

BC: Yes, without making them sleep in their cars. If they can get that right, which will require everyone to take a little hit, including the people who issued the mortgages, you know, we all have to sacrifice a little bit here, then you will see, fairly soon, banks making solid loans again and then the economy will begin to come back. I noticed the other day the stock markets seemed to be saying that the Treasury Secretary didn’t give us enough details on the home mortgage thing, it didn’t give us enough details on the bailout.

MS: It plummeted.

BC: That’s true. But we all need to understand here that this is highly complicated and once you go down a road it is hard to reverse it. So its OK with me if they take a couple of more days to get this right. But the point is that their asking right questions, how can we save as many people and their homes as possible, how can we refinance these mortgages so people can pay them, what is a fair allocation of sacrifice in the losses that will occur as you redo the mortgages and then how can we make the banks secure enough to make loans. Most of you come from communities where your banks did not have any of these subprime mortgages, they didn’t make any of these funny loans, but they are scared to make a loan now. Why? Because first it was the housing crisis going down, now everything else is going down, so banks are afraid that they made loans that were great when they made them, but they are afraid they are going to be forced to write down the loans because the basis of the loan, the underlying collateral, is no longer what it was. They’ve got to fix that that. We’ve got to stop the decline in asset values, then the banks the will operate the way you are used to them operating.

MS: And yet, I have just noticed people are starting to buy houses.

BC: Absolutely.

MS: Smart, young couples are realizing that they can finally afford a house they really like. And they are starting to buy. I think that that’s an encouraging sign for all of us.

A spy tells us that when Laura Bell Bundy – who starred in “Legally Blonde” and is a fierce, dyed-in- the-wool Democrat – ran into the former president at Nobu the other night, the blond cutie quickly whipped out a T- shirt she had made in support of Barack Obama and handed it to him. “The shirt read, ‘Every Time Obama Speaks, an Angel Has an Orgasm,” ‘ our insider said. “Bill loved it and even chuckled he couldn’t wait to show it to Hillary.”

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BILL Clinton gave the cold shoulder to Barack Obama’s biggest supporter, Oprah Winfrey, at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday in London. A source at the dinner in Hyde Park, catered by Gordon Ramsay, told us, “There was a very cold reception between them.” When Winfrey went over to Mandela’s table, where Clinton was seated, “Oprah and Bill, who used to be very close, barely acknowledged one another,” the source said. But insiders in the Clinton and Winfrey camps claim the two spoke to each other at a private reception before the dinner. Other guests included Robert De Niro, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Kim Cattrall, Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman. And despite rumors that Naomi Campbell – who calls herself Mandela’s goddaughter – was denied presenter duties at tonight’s concert for Mandela’s 46664 AIDS charity, the cellphone-hurling catwalker was seen “hugging everyone” at the party.

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Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s wife, Cindy, and Bill Clinton have cooked up a controversy in Family Circle.

Cindy and Bill along with Michelle Obama submitted cookie recipes for the magazine’s 5th Presidential Bake-Off, but it appears that the former president and Mrs. McCain swiped their recipes from well known sources, according to The Huffington Post.

The July issue features a recipe for “Cindy McCain’s Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies.” The only problem? It appears to be directly copied from the Hershey’s website.

“They are an absolute must whenever the whole family gets together,” Cindy raves to Family Circle.

Although Bill attributes his oatmeal cookie recipe to a longtime Clinton family cook, the recipe is identical to a Betty Crocker recipe. The Huffington Post published both recipes and they appear the same.

This isn’t the first time Cindy has come under fire in the kitchen.

A McCain intern lifted Rachael Ray’s recipe for rosemary chicken (as well as other Food Network recipes) and posted them as “Cindy’s Recipes” on her husband’s presidential campaign site.

But Ray told Usmagazine.com in a statement: “These recipes are supposed to be accessible to everyone – interns, senators, students and families alike!

“I am flattered when anyone cooks my food.”

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