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Bush and Obama: Their First Meeting
November 09, 2008 8:38 PM
In anticipation of the White House meeting tomorrow afternoon between President Bush and President-elect Obama, here's an excerpt from "The Audacity of Hope," where then-Sen.. Obama wrote of his first meeting with the president about four years ago:
The inside of the White House doesn’t have the luminous quality that you might expect from television or film; it seems well kept but worn, a big old house that one imagines might be a bit drafty on cold winter nights.
On a chilly January afternoon in 2005, the day before my swearing-in as a senator, I was invited there with other new members of Congress. At 1600 hours on the dot, President Bush was announced and walked to the podium, looking vigorous and fit, with that jaunty, determined walk that suggests he’s on a schedule and wants to keep detours to a minimum. For 10 or so minutes he spoke to the room, making a few jokes, calling for the country to come together, before inviting us for refreshments and a picture with him and the First Lady.
I happened to be starving, so while most of the other legislators started lining up for their photographs, I headed for the buffet. As I munched on hors d’oeuvres, I recalled an earlier encounter with the president, a small White House breakfast with me and the other incoming senators.
I had found him to be a likable man, shrewd and disciplined but with the same straightforward manner that had helped him win two elections; you could easily imagine him owning the local car dealership, coaching Little League baseball and grilling in his backyard – the kind of guy who would make for good company so long as the conversation revolved around sport and the kids.
There had been a moment during the breakfast meeting, though, after the backslapping and the small talk and when all of us were seated, with Vice-President Cheney eating his eggs benedict impassively and Karl Rove at the far end of the table discreetly checking his BlackBerry, that I had witnessed a different side of the man.
The president had begun to discuss his second-term agenda, mostly a reiteration of his campaign talking points – the importance of staying the course in Iraq and renewing the Patriot Act, the need to reform social security and overhaul the tax system, his determination to get an up-or-down vote on his judicial appointees – when suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch.
The president’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and I appreciated the wisdom of America’s founding fathers in designing a system to keep power in check.
“Senator?” I looked up, shaken out of this memory, and saw one of the older black men who made up most of the White House waiting staff standing next to me.
“Want me to take that plate for you?” I nodded, trying to swallow a mouthful of chicken something-or-other, and noticed that the line to greet the president had evaporated. A young marine at the door politely indicated that the photograph session was over and that the president needed to get to his next appointment. But before I could turn around to go, the president himself appeared.
“Obama!” he said, shaking my hand. “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours – that’s one impressive lady.”
“We both got better than we deserve, Mr. President,” I said, shaking the First Lady’s hand and hoping that I’d wiped any crumbs off my face.
The president turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.
“Want some?” the president asked. “Good stuff. Keeps you from getting colds.” Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.
“Come over here for a second,” he said, leading me off to one side of the room.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice.”
“Not at all, Mr. President.” He nodded. “You’ve got a bright future,” he said. “Very bright. But I’ve been in this town a while and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting for you to slip. Know what I mean? So watch yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. President.”
“All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common.”
“What’s that?” “We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
I laughed, and as we walked to the door I told him a few stories from the campaign.
It wasn’t until he had left the room that I realized I had briefly put my arm over his shoulder as we talked – an unconscious habit of mine, but one that I suspected might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy.
As I’ve been a steady and occasionally fierce critic of Bush administration policies, Democratic audiences are often surprised when I tell them that I don’t consider George Bush a bad man and that I assume he and members of his administration are trying to do what they think is best for the country.
After the trappings of office are stripped away, I find the president and those who surround him to be pretty much like everybody else, possessed of the same mix of virtues and vices, insecurities and long-buried injuries, as the rest of us.
No matter how wrongheaded I might consider their policies to be – and no matter how much I might insist that they be held accountable for the results of such policies – I still find it possible, in talking to these men and women, to understand their motives, and to recognize in them values I share.
This is not an easy posture to maintain in Washington. The stakes involved in policy debates are often so high that I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values – indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people.
-jpt
November 9, 2008 in Obama, Barack | Permalink | Share | User Comments (133)
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LogicalUS | Nov 10, 2008 12:02:54 PM says, of Bush & co. departing the White House, "There will be no juvenile destruction and graffiti like when the leftists of the Clinton administration destroyed all the computers keyboards by breaking all the "W" keys nor defacing of walls with pens."
And there will be no such lies and slanders manufactured by Obama & co. when they move in.
Posted by: Bob, Cherry Valley | Nov 10, 2008 1:27:07 PM
Showing the level of decency which we have come to expect from President Bush, he will assist Obama during the transition for the sake of the nation.
There will be no juvenile destruction and graffiti like when the leftists of the Clinton administration destroyed all the computers keyboards by breaking all the "W" keys nor defacing of walls with pens.
Obama has fostered and encouraged the irrational daranged hatred of President Bush by the lunatic left for the past two years in order to further his campaign, but, as so often in the past, President Bush will rise above the hatred to act in the best interest of the nation.
In a decade, like Carter, not one of these Obama-bots will admit to voting for Barry and will be claiming like their predecessors with Reagan, they were President Bush's biggest supporters.
Posted by: LogicalUS | Nov 10, 2008 12:02:54 PM
I'd have washed my hands too, to get rid of any residual Radical Liberalism on Obama's hands.
Posted by: Ron | Nov 10, 2008 10:46:58 AM
The main stream media literally fried President Bush alive with their hate articles while Americans watched and listened since Bush's first day in office. I listened all those years for something positive, but never heard anything. History will prove that Bush has been the greatest president this country has ever had and his lovely wife Laura Bush has been the most gracious First Lady. I am not aware of one positive report from the media on our president and his family. The media has only given credence to the office of the presidency when Clinton was in office and now Obama. Why is that? The media has manipulated some people into thinking Obama is going to bring change. Viewers asked, WHAT CHANGE, but have been ignored. All I can say is while the media has relentlessly attacked our great president, he never faltered and protected you and me from another 9/11 attack the entire time. Instead, the media promotes something Obama wrote portraying himself to be more intelligent than President Bush. When President and Mrs. Bush leave the Whitehouse I will be scared to death. I am at a loss for words for what the media has done. The main stream media is a persuader. They have the ability to persuade some people that Hitler was a nice guy and brought about change. The media also had the opportunity to be honest with the American people. Instead they chose to relentlessly go after Sarah Palin more than they have our enemies abroad since 9/11. They relentlessly attacked Joe the Plumber, a simple citizen. The moral purpose of the media is to report the news, not select our politicians for us. Maybe it was money, but the media dictated the 2008 election. The media has begun the destruction of this great country by becoming a dictatorship to their agenda with no apology. The media has no backbone for the truth anymore. When money becomes more important than the truth and the American people, this country will fall. There isn't anyone that would love to see a black man in office more than myself. Ordinary people don't know anything about Obama and the media has only shown us he is a great speaker, is black and is going to bring change. We haven't seen Obama under extreme pressure because the media gave him a free ride. They never asked him difficult questions and protected him during the entire campaign process. On the other hand, the media mocked republicans to the world and laughed about it. What the media did is the most unAmerican thing I've ever seen during my lifetime. For some reason the media portrayed republicans that represent half of this country as stupid. The main stream media has ignored all the good things President Bush has done and refuse to report on them because they enjoy mocking him more? Wonder who they are going to mock now that democrats are in control of our country? If all we hear are great things about democrats in the next four years then the real truth and nothing but the truth about the media will be known worldwide.
Posted by: debbie | Nov 10, 2008 10:01:39 AM
Sue G. - You need to heed the advice my grandmother gave me almost 60 years ago "Believe NONE of what you hear and only HALF of what you read"! I cannot wait for 1/20/09 to roll around. Goodbye and good riddance to Bush #43.
Posted by: Bill | Nov 10, 2008 9:42:28 AM
Charming passage from the book written by PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. And Betsyross, if you really feel, at this point, that you don't know much about the past of PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA (reading his memoir might be a good place to start), fear not: You'll have plenty of time to observe and study over the next eight years.
Posted by: DKNY | Nov 10, 2008 9:21:08 AM
People, this is Obama's words embellished by a ghost writer or editor. Bill Ayers perhaps. The literary license piques your emotions, esp. those of you already suffering BDS.
Let it go. I wonder how Bush biographers would write this from another perspective?
Obama wouldn't have had the time to write if he'd been busy getting himself to Senate proceedings and meetings. . . on time.
Posted by: Emily | Nov 10, 2008 8:14:35 AM
I don't believe what he says in "his" book. I don't believe we still don't know anything about this mans past.
Posted by: BetsyRoss | Nov 10, 2008 7:53:41 AM
Obama was the most liberal Senator in the US Senate and he ran for President as a centrist.
He built his support from the far left.
They made him who he is.
He will betray someone.
If he governs centrist, he lied to the left.
If he governs left, he lied to us.
He will have lied to someone.
He will have betrayed someone.
Posted by: drjohn | Nov 10, 2008 7:48:35 AM
Now that I've ripped you a new one for the last four years, let's be friends!
Posted by: drjohn | Nov 10, 2008 7:45:54 AM
Bush to Obama, shakes hands and then says, "You can call me John." See Obamas face turn red. I wish
Posted by: Maria | Nov 10, 2008 7:29:51 AM
Seems you guys/gals ganging up on pefros simply aren't able to read; his stats and citations are rather relevant, and speak better for America's greatness than you. As for the falsity of the McCain/Palin campaign - it will be the biggest black mark on his biography. Finally, to devolve to the truly trivial, "Joe the Plumber," a rt wing republican, a plant in Obama's well intending face, and fraud (not Joe, not a licensed plumber, certainly not anywhere near $250,000, and never a small businessman) well represents the ignorance of so many blue collars thinking the Republicans have their interests in mind, having, contrary to claims anti Obama, actually "redistributed the wealth" themselves several times over in Bush's landmark tax give-aways to the rich nad McCain's express persistence to keep them.
Posted by: mabuse | Nov 10, 2008 3:58:35 AM
For what it's worth, there's a lot to improve where the moderation of postings is concerned. What gets deleted at times is very arbitrary and appears to be politically influenced, yet personal attacks are allowed. There's a lack of consistency in the moderation. With other sites, the rules are posted with clear explanations and postings can be flagged for abuse. Of course, it gets worse late at night, but contention spilling over into rage happens in the peak times, too. I guess I've said all that needs to be said.
Posted by: kat | Nov 10, 2008 3:34:24 AM
...and so it goes.
Posted by: stl | Nov 10, 2008 2:48:28 AM
aye!
Posted by: stl | Nov 10, 2008 2:34:18 AM
Goodnight, CJ. Sweet dreams
Posted by: kat | Nov 10, 2008 2:33:43 AM
"STL , I don't know what your post means in the least. All I know is that it's late and I've observed all kinds of stuff pop out of the woodwork tonight. I must stop hanging around here. It's an utter waste of my time."
Kat, sorry if I wasn't clear enough for you. You seem to have a lot of things to say about the past. Do you have any ideas for the future? Does that simplify it for you? If not, please let me know.
Posted by: stl | Nov 10, 2008 2:32:55 AM
aye!
Posted by: nevada 2 | Nov 10, 2008 2:32:12 AM
: pefros so now your using sarah palin as proof that you are right-last night you were smearing her-now she is your source? your use of information is twisted.
leave palin alone
Posted by: nevada 2 | Nov 10, 2008 2:29:54 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US voters want the Republican Party, which took a beating in this week's general elections, to embrace progressiveness and work with Democratic president-elect Barack Obama to get America back on track, a poll showed Friday.
More than three-quarters of 2,000 people surveyed on Tuesday, the day of the historic election which saw Obama become the first African-American elected to the White House, and on Wednesday, said the US has gone "pretty seriously off on the wrong track" and needed change.
Only slightly fewer -- 71 percent -- said Republicans "should give Obama the benefit of the doubt and help him achieve his plans," against 24 percent who said it should oppose the progressive changes proposed by Obama, said the poll by the Campaign for America's Future (CAF) and Democracy Corps.
Posted by: pefros | Nov 10, 2008 2:29:00 AM
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