Dan Rather
"POLITICS," WROTE 19th-century wit Charles Dudley Warner, "makes strange bedfellows." Indeed. And this is what comes to mind as we witness President Clinton's public passage into the circle of President Bush and President Bush.
This trio of presidents past and present, related and unrelated, gathered in Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. At first glance, this might seem nothing more than a periodic meeting of that most exclusive of American clubs, past and present occupants of the Oval Office the likes of which we see not only at elaborate state funerals, but also at events such as the openings of presidential libraries. But if that is the case, President Carter is notable for his absence, along with President Ford who, at age 91 and in frail health, no longer travels extensively.
No, there might be something else at work here the continuation of a thaw in Clinton-Bush relations that had its public beginnings last June. That was when, amid the heat of the Bush-Kerry campaign, the current President Bush warmly praised the former President Clinton at the unveiling of the Clintons' official White House portraits. That, for those keeping score at home, marked the third time in a matter of weeks that the 42nd and 43rd presidents appeared together in Washington that summer the first two being the opening of the National World War II Memorial and the state funeral of President Reagan.
BEHIND THE TURNAROUND
The Bush-Clinton detente continued into this year, as President Bush chose his father and President Clinton to be the public faces of United States tsunami relief efforts, and it reached its height with reports that Clinton had, while travelling with Bush the Elder, ceded him their airplane's only bed, while he himself slept on the cabin floor.
What is behind this turnaround in a relationship that once could be summed up in President George W. Bush's campaign promise that he would "restore honour and dignity to the White House," a not-so-subtle reminder of the Monica Lewinsky scandal?
Generally, when people use the well-worn "bedfellows" phrase, they are referring to the way that specific issues can bring together people of seemingly divergent ideological beliefs. In the case of Bush-Clinton, however, the politics that are making strange bedfellows are not particular matters of public policy but electoral politics.
Or so, at least, it seems. It could very well be that Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have discovered that they all hit it off, on a personal level. There could be no more to recent developments than this.
Maybe, though, the Bush-Clinton spring has its roots in whatever presidential aspirations Sen. Hillary Clinton harbours for herself in 2008. Right now, the former first lady is still known in Republican circles as a unifier and fundraiser without equal that is, when Republicans want to mobilize and raise money from the faithful, they raise the spectre of "Hillary."
NO STOPPING PERRY
If Sen. Clinton really does wish to make a run for the White House, the conventional wisdom holds that she will have to find a way to come across as a less-polarising figure. Her work in the Senate has perhaps gone some way toward achieving this, but that has not stopped the campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for example, from making a widely circulated video of a joint appearance between Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Sen. Clinton, in an effort to head off a gubernatorial primary challenge from Hutchinson.
Could the warming relations between Bill Clinton and the Bush presidents help Hillary shed her GOP-rallying-point status? In today's political world, we might also write that bedfellows make strange politics ... that make strange bedfellows.
Dan Rather is a television broadcaster.
