Sheldon Alberts: Clinton and Bush ... Their Strange Friendship

Sheldon Alberts, in the Montreal Gazette (4-9-05):

Back when Bill Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, photographs of the U.S. president and his raven-haired paramour suddenly became ubiquitous in almost every newspaper in the United States.

Here was Clinton and Lewinsky gazing at each other on the White House lawn, shaking hands at the White House holiday party, embracing at a Washington fundraiser. For years, it turned out, Clinton had been hiding his mistress in plain sight.

Now Clinton has gone and done it again - getting tangled up in a not-so-secret affair that some Washingtonians find nearly as shocking as the Lewinsky scandal.

To the horror of Democrats, the 42nd U.S. president is quickly developing a chummy relationship with President George W. Bush and his father, former president George H.W. Bush.

No one paid much attention at first, but keen observers have noticed lately Clinton has become almost as constant a presence in the president's life as Barney the dog.

When Dubya needed to fill an extra seat on Air Force One en route to Pope John Paul II's funeral yesterday at the Vatican, he snubbed Nobel laureate Jimmy Carter - who had invited John Paul to Washington, a White House first - and tapped Clinton to make the trip with him, his dad and wife, Laura.

Clinton even sat in on Bush's daily intelligence briefing while aboard the flight.

When the current president dispatched George H.W. to the tsunami-stricken areas of Thailand and Indonesia, Clinton was named a co-ambassador to promote U.S. humanitarian relief efforts.

The relationship has grown so close that when Clinton underwent a second round of heart surgery last month, the current president joked that his predecessor awoke in his hospital bed "surrounded by his loved ones - Hillary, Chelsea, and my dad."

The spring fling is causing a stir for a couple of reasons.

First, it is rare for presidents and ex-presidents from different political parties to strike up public friendships.

Carter, a Democrat, and Gerald Ford, a Republican, warmed to each other after they left office, but historians say the list of presidential pals pretty much ends there.

What makes the Bush-Clinton friendships more remarkable is that, for the longest time, they genuinely appeared to despise each other.

When H.W. was running for re-election in 1992, he referred to Clinton and running mate Al Gore as "the two bozos."

When Bush fils won the White House in 2000, he did so by promising to restore "honour and dignity" to an office sullied by Clinton's extracurricular sexual activities.

The animosity began to subside at the unveiling of Clinton's portrait at the White House last summer, when Bush gushed that "the years have done a lot to clarify the strengths" of his predecessor....