Bill Clinton Reveals Hidden Love

On March 21, at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the former U.S. presidents honored the oldest member of their club, George H.W. Bush, the 41st. The six members of the club form a close and respected group. All of them are not necessarily friends. But there was quite a surprise when Bill Clinton took advantage of the occasion to declare his love in an unexpected and dramatic way, to the one who left the White House in 1992. Is everybody following?

The club of former U.S. presidents regularly gets together for events that mark the nation. At Senator Edward Kennedy’s funeral, they were all there alongside President Barack Obama, as a way of showing the importance they attributed to the senator from Massachusetts, the last surviving of the three Kennedy brothers who had been part of American history since the 1960s.

The club also serves as a pool of experts for the incumbent president by taking on sensitive missions throughout the world. This week Jimmy Carter is in Cuba. Bill Clinton brought back two journalists from North Korea. He is in charge of coordinating the reconstruction of Haiti. They serve their country on an ad hoc basis, whether it is public knowledge or not. George Bush Sr. called Hosni Moubarak at the beginning of the Egyptian popular revolt, surely not of his own doing and certainly not to tell him to stay.

On March 21, the club gathered for a celebration for the first time since Obama’s inauguration (the 44th appeared by video). Washington gathered around the 41st, at 86 years old and in a wheelchair, for the Points of Light Institute, which is entirely dedicated to volunteerism. It cost $2,500 per attendee, with $30 million at stake in all. But the importance wasn’t only in that regard.

The evening was televised and attracted more than 4 million viewers on NBC. This placed it in fifth position among the shows on at same time, and behind “Dancing with the Stars,” which attracted 22 million viewers even though Bristol Palin was not there dancing the samba. Speaking of the Palins, Sarah Palin didn’t reach the 5 million viewer mark with her series, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”

It is at this point that the amorous Clinton enters the scene. Everyone remembers that Bill Clinton prevented Bush from staying in office for a second term when he won the election in 1992. The Bushes’ feelings for Clinton are well known, and so the presence of Bill Clinton, an impressive fundraiser, would have been unthinkable on this date if something had not happened between the two men.

And Bill recalled how he fell in “love” with his old Republican rival when they worked together in Southeast Asia after the 2004 tsunami, then again following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He joked that they made an odd couple, saying that Barbara Bush referred to him as their “black sheep son.”

“This man whom I’d always liked and respected and then run against in a painful campaign in some ways, I literally came to love, and I realized all over again how much energy we waste fighting with each other over things that don’t matter. But nobody’s right all the time, and nobody’s wrong all the time,” he said.

It seemed odd to have this Republican evening led by Bill Clinton, who was praised by his mentor and his family for help in funding the “Thousand Points of Light.” As explained by Clinton, when Bush Sr. left the White House he asked Clinton one thing: to save the “Points of Light” initiative, and he did just that. He added, “When I left [the White House] I asked the 43rd one thing: to save AmeriCorps. And he did that.”

Even if the March 28 TV special on NBC didn’t attract many viewers in the 18-49 age group, it doesn’t matter. There was a sense of nostalgia, said Jeb Bush, the other son and former governor of Florida. We learned that President Bush is very well loved by his predecessors, with Barack Obama at the head of the group. It might be a while before the same thing happens to W.