Two former presidents are role models on how to overcome our political divisions.
By Talmage Boston
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
We recently passed the 25th anniversary of the world-changing events that occurred Sept. 11, 2001. From all the news stories commemorating the event, one in particular touched me more than the others. It ran on The Wall Street Journal’s front page on Sept. 12 and recounted the time when American forces found and killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
Shortly after it happened, President Barack Obama sent top national security officials to Dallas to brief his predecessor George W. Bush and explain the specifics of the military operation that killed the man responsible from the 9/11 attacks. According to the Journal, Bush was engaged and appreciative during his more than two-hour meeting with Obama’s officials. The briefing deepened the bond between the two former presidents.
Reading the article triggered my recollection of pictures I’ve seen over the years — photos showing George W. Bush and Michelle Obama having fun encounters while sitting next to each other at inaugurations, funerals, presidential library openings and special events — like the service at the Meyerson Symphony Center after our Dallas policemen were killed — where presidents and first ladies come together.
Those images always lift my spirits because regardless of their political differences, (most pronounced in 2008 when then-Sen. Obama ran as the Democratic presidential nominee and repeatedly criticized outgoing President Bush’s eight-year performance in the Oval Office), when the time came to transfer power, the Bushes and Obamas took the high road from Day One and they have stayed elevated in their dealings over several years. Doing so, they have set an example for all Americans by refusing to let politics interfere with the development of a good friendship.
Their emotionally intelligent behavior toward one another started right after the November 2008 election when President Bush invited President-elect Obama and his family to the White House. Laura Bush and her daughters showed Michelle Obama and her daughters around the living quarters and the now-demolished East Wing. Bush also gave a guided tour to his successor of all the nooks and crannies in and around the West Wing. The introductory experience led Obama to recognize Bush as “a really good man …[who] has been very gracious to me” and “Laura has been gracious to Michelle and the whole family has been terrific.”
On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama entered the Oval Office after his inauguration, he found a letter from Bush with these words:
You have just begun a fantastic chapter in your life. Very few have had the honor of knowing the responsibility you now feel. Very few know the excitement of the moment and the challenges you will face. There will be trying moments. The critics will rage. Your friends will disappoint you. But you will have an Almighty God to comfort you, a family who loves you, and a country that is pulling for you, including me.
After that good start, knowing there would be many times in the future when they would come together at major events, George and Laura Bush and Barack and Michelle Obama made the decision to turn their political relationship into a friendship. “Bush 43” had seen his father George H.W. Bush (“Bush 41”) achieve this result when he formed an almost father-son relationship with his successor Bill Clinton (who had never known his own father), and Clinton and Bush 43 then followed suit and developed such a close friendship that they claimed to be “brothers from different mothers.”
In a mode of sublime synchronicity, they have joint-ventured leadership programs with their respective presidential libraries and appeared together often at speaking engagements where they gently poke fun at each other while making observations on past and present events.
What helped the Bush-Obama friendship take off was presidential protocol (whereby presidents and first ladies are seated between their White House predecessor and successor) that causes George W. Bush and Michelle Obama to sit next to each other whenever a special occasion arises.
Anyone who’s spent time with Bush knows he has a quick wit and a sincere warmth to his personality, which he has shown repeatedly to the Obamas, whether giving Michelle a needed cough drop at Sen. John McCain’s funeral or giving Obama a belly-tap as he walked past him at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.
Media cameras clicked away as George W. and Michelle hugged at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and kissed on the cheek and held hands while singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the Meyerson event for the fallen policemen. They never fail to show enjoyment of each other’s company. The Bush-Obama friendship moved Business Insider correspondent Eliza Relman in a 2021 article to view them as “a symbol of bipartisanship and human decency at a time of deep political and cultural divisions”.
Michelle Obama captures the connection between the families with these words: “We disagree on policy, but we don’t disagree on humanity. We don’t disagree about love and compassion … I love him to death. He’s a wonderful man, and a funny man.” She has also said, “That’s what people are hungry for … Party doesn’t separate us, color, gender, those kinds of things don’t separate us.”
George W. Bush puts it this way: “The country is starved to see a white center right Republican and an African American center left Democrat have fun and be able to converse not as public figures, but as citizens. And I intend to keep doing that … That’s what’s so weird about society today — the surprise that people on opposite sides of the political spectrum can actually like each other.”
Put these facts together and it is these two presidents who led the nation during the war on terror, the last event that brought our country together in a (unfortunately short-lived) unified response to the 9/11 tragedy, have now become role models to demonstrate that initial political division can be overcome by genuine repeated expressions of warmth and good-natured humor.
Most Americans these days yearn for their presidents and first ladies to prioritize unity over division; take the high road when conflict arises; and consistently demonstrate integrity, compassion, sincere affection and good humor toward their fellow citizens regardless of political leanings. So let’s give credit to our 43rd and 44th presidents and their wives for showing us that this type of virtuous conduct can take place — and let’s see if we can follow in their footsteps.
Part of our series The American Middle. This essay discusses the friendship between Barack Obama and George W. Bush as an example of how unity can be forged despite political difference.
Contributing Columnist
Talmage Boston is a Dallas lawyer who has authored five history books and written Op-Eds and book reviews for The Dallas Morning News for over 30 years. His latest book, How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents, was released April 2024. He is a Dallas Morning News Contributing Columnist.
