Posted on 06/15/2004 12:50:11 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
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ASHINGTON, June 14 - For a moment in the White House on Monday morning, it seemed like a political mirage: President Bush and Bill Clinton, joking as they walked together into the East Room, then spending the next 20 minutes effusively praising each other.
But the even stranger sight was the audience, the men and women who make up Senator John Kerry's brain trust, almost all of them veterans of the Clinton era who have not set foot in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for three years, four months and 24 days, vigorously applauding the sitting president they are desperately trying to ride out of town.
Peace finally broke out this morning - well, a truce that ended after lunch - between two administrations that make no secret of how viscerally they dislike each other. The brief lull in the street fighting permitted the unveiling of the official White House portraits of Mr. Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - which will now, by tradition, occupy the places where portraits of Mr. Bush's father and mother now hang.
Graciousness oozed from all sides. Mr. Bush praised his predecessor - upon whom he bestowed the honorific nickname "42" to mark an eight-year interregnum between Bushes - as a man "with far-ranging knowledge of public policy, a great compassion for people in need, and the forward-looking spirit the Americans like in a president." He offered up an advance plug for Mr. Clinton's memoir.
His face reddening, his eye tearing a bit, Mr. Clinton returned the compliment, saying: "I had mixed feelings coming here today, and they were only confirmed by all those kind and generous things you've said. Made me feel like I was a pickle stepping into history."
For the first time in years, he stood and talked at a lectern adorned by a presidential seal.
Forgotten, for the moment, was Mr. Bush's campaign pledge "to restore honor and dignity" to the Oval Office. And forgotten was the unwritten rule inside the Bush White House that Mr. Clinton's presidency would rarely be mentioned by name - except to blame it for leaving Mr. Bush with an approaching recession, for contributing to violence in the Middle East, or for letting North Korea keep its plutonium.
Until Monday, the former aides to Mr. Clinton - who filled the East Room and then wandered, nostalgically, through the ceremonial rooms for a lunch given by Laura Bush - have been no more charitable. Day by day, with ever-increasing volume, they issue broadsides about how Mr. Bush has torn apart perfectly solid alliances, turned surpluses into huge deficits and blamed everyone but himself for mistakes in Iraq.
(The Clinton alumni are also circulating a joke about how many Bush administration officials it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is seven, and the joke is too long for this space, but suffice it to say that one of the officials is in charge of blaming Mr. Clinton for the blown bulb, and another is in charge of invading a country that is believed to be stockpiling replacement bulbs.)
But that was all gone this morning. "I thought everybody was going to break out in 'Kumbaya,' " said Rahm Emanuel, known a few years ago as among the most partisan of Mr. Clinton's aides.
Mr. Emanuel said he was touched by Mr. Bush's comments. But by this afternoon, the good feelings about Mr. Bush had worn off sufficiently for Mr. Emanuel, now a congressman from Chicago, to point out how an underestimate of terrorist attacks around the world in a recent Bush administration report fit a pattern of "curious mistakes" involving other unpleasant statistics.
The Bush administration said it believed this was the first time that Mr. Clinton had returned to the White House since he left on Jan. 20, 2001, having just issued a slew of midnight pardons over the advice of his own top aides. His wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been back many times, for official events. And on Monday Mr. Bush had kind words for her, as well.
"Listen, New York politics is serious business," Mr. Bush said to laughs. "It's rough business. It takes an extraordinary person to campaign and win the United States Senate. She has proven herself more equal than - to the challenge."
Mrs. Clinton also proved herself eager to have posterity remember her as she was in the White House: dressed in a pants suit, all business. For some in the crowd, it was a welcome return to once-familiar ground. Former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen was there, using a wheelchair because he has had several strokes, but smiling at the Texas jokes. So were two of Mr. Kerry's top foreign policy advisers: the former defense secretary William Perry and the former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger. And so was Chelsea Clinton, who smiled when Mr. Bush said, "The fact that you survived your teenage years in the White House speaks to the fact you had a great mom and dad."
But a few in the audience seemed to be watching Mr. Bush with the seasoned eye of a batter studying videotapes of a particularly skilled pitcher. Among them was Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, who was an assistant to the president under Mr. Clinton.
"It's the first time I've seen him in the White House," Ms. Cahill told reporters later. "I thought that President and Mrs. Bush were extremely gracious to the Clintons. This was a historic moment; it was a nonpartisan moment."
She might have said briefly nonpartisan: By the time reporters returned to their offices, Ms. Cahill had circulated a letter mocking plans by Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, for a media blitz against Mr. Kerry, and citing poll numbers showing the president behind the challenger.
Mr. Bush's graciousness today was hardly surprising. He remembers well, his aides say, Mr. Clinton's equally charitable comments about 41, the senior President Bush, when his portrait was unveiled nearly a decade ago. Ms. Cahill recalled that ceremony as a "similarly nonpartisan, historical moment'' and said "and everyone rose to the occasion."
For those looking for even the subtlest sign of partisan bite in the encounter, there were a few tiny morsels to chew. Mr. Bush's praise of his predecessor included references to Mr. Clinton's "hard work and drive and determination and optimism."
"I mean, after all," he said with a grin, "you got to be optimistic to give six months of your life running the McGovern campaign in Texas."
Mr. Clinton was only slightly more indirect. Talking about his favorite portraits in the White House, he finally settled on one of another president, from a century ago, who knew a thing or two about military pre-emption.
"If you look at that picture, Theodore Roosevelt, who was known as our most macho, bully, self-confident president," Mr. Clinton said, "you look at that picture and you see, here's a human being who's scared to death and not sure it's going to come out all right."
Then, with a cryptic comment that left all sides confused about whether he was making comparisons to a modern president immersed in a messy foreign occupation, he added: "And he does the right thing anyway. That's what I saw in that picture."
But in the end, Mr. Clinton returned to the theme that dominated the post-Monica Lewinsky phase of his presidency: what he used to call the politics of personal destruction.
"I hope that I will live long enough,'' he told Mr. Bush and the former Clinton aides, "to see American politics return to vigorous debates where we argue who's right and wrong, not who's good and bad.''
Once again, George W. Bush is shown to be the epitome of class, and Bill Clinton the epitome of what you get when you leave off the "cl".
I can only pray that Bill Clinton at least learned something from this day, but I regret I am too hopeful.
Same goes for the way the president has treated Ted Kennedy, Hillary (letting her ride on AF1 with him) and the way, in turn, look how they have treated him. They don't care. It's one thing to disagree with the president's policies, it's another thing to be hateful and lie.
I have mixed feelings about President Bush being so nice. I love that he is above these people and ignores their hate and lies, but another part of me wants him to quit playing the whipping boy and start to fight back. Of course, at this event, it wouldn't have been appropriate.
Slick mentioned Teddy R. We need someone who walks softly, but carries a big stick. We need a big stick for the enemy within. We need it for the Islamonuts.
Did I miss something? Did Clinton praise Bush? Just cause he didn't attack him, doesn't mean he praised him. But then, this is the NYT and who believes anything they say.
I'm sorry, but when George W. Bush piles on the praise for such a disgraceful person as Bubba Clinton, he risks losing my vote to a third-party candidate.
Does Bush really believe all this positive crap he says about Bubba? To me, it takes away from Bush's credibility as a leader and it also makes me wonder whether he really meant all the positive things he said about Ronald Reagan on Friday. Maybe Dubya just says whatever the moderate masses want him to say at such ceremonial functions.
And then I think about a young person in school who might be doing a research paper on the impeached Clinton. That kid does research to get some quotes about Clinton and finds that the Republican who followed him into office has mountains of praise for him. The message to the kid is that Bubba must not be that bad a guy if his political opponent says such kind things.
More and more, I'm beginning to think Bush is just simply clueless. Clueless on education. Clueless on illegal immigration. Clueless on Clinton's corruption. Maybe I'll write in Nancy Reagan for president. At least then I'd feel good about my vote.
Bless your heart..Read the transcript of the speech...Graciousness and good manners are displayed during these ceremonies..It has nothing to do HIS being clueless.
Petty attitudes like yours will certainly see Kerry in the White House.
Bush was showing "class" to a classless media and a classless last couple.
Imagine how the media would have spin this if he lowered himself to their slimy partisan selves.
It was a no win all around. Most Americans don't need to be told what a dirtball the Clinton's are.
It is interesting that the discussion today is about whether President Bush is too polite, too nice. Think of what that concept implies.
1). No one is arguing that President Bush HAD to say those polite remarks.
2) It seems to be a given that Clinton did not deserve them. They were a gift.
3) The conversation is all about how nice and gentlemanly President Bush IS to the core of his being.
4) The Kerry campaign got nothing from that event that they can use against Bush.
I like that the President is gracious, but I must say he is OVERLY gracious. That really makes the Bushes unsuited for politics. These people will continue to say he knew about 9/11, say how he lied in sending our men to die in a war for his own monetary gain, say this and that. They say the most personal, hateful things and never tone it down. Funny how Clintoon himself should mention no politics of personal destruction as that is the way the Clintoon's run things. I really am finding it a tremendous weakness that Bush never so much as calls these people on the lies and slander they say against him. Yet here he is with a really over the top praise for them. They will continue to lie as they never have to answer for it. That is being a sucker.
"Made me feel like I was a pickle stepping into history"
Did Clinton really say this?
A "pickle", "stepping into" history???
I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere but I just don't get the metaphor.
Preserved for the ages, perhaps?
exactly!!!
Did anyone catch this? There was one shot of GW during a pause in his speech when he looked directly at Slick. GW had a look on his face that was almost disgust.
No, that is being presidential and respectful of the OFFICE of president.
It just it has been so long that we have had a gentlemanly president in office that we have forgotten what it was like.
Let history judge Clinton's presidency. It is not up to the sitting President to do it.
Did it really take 5 gallons of paint for Hillary's bottom half of the picture?
Couldn’t have said it better myself.....It is so obvious who has manners, class and decorum and who was raised totally with out such attributes. Manners come without a price tag..........
....:)
Try this:)
"I think his remark about the pickle was interesting. He probably meant to say "I got myself in so many pickles as President that I view myself as a BIG DILL rolling through history." - 268 posted on 06/14/2004 11:14:36 AM EDT by sheikdetailfeather
"More like a BIG DILL-DOH" - 279 posted on 06/14/2004 11:17:29 AM EDT by hispanarepublicana
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