The Club

The most exclusive club in existence is the one whose members are the president of the United States and the surviving former presidents (of which there are currently three: Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton).

To hold that office is one of the most extraordinary experiences anyone can have, and very few men (so far, and into the immediate future at least, all men) have experienced it. That creates a bond that transcends differences of party, ideology and past ambition.

And first ladies are also part of The Club. The wives of the three former presidents are all still alive, along with two first widows, Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan.

The Club appears in public together at each other's presidential library dedications, inaugurations and funerals.

Two especially notable friendships have flourished in recent decades between pairs of presidents who ran against each other. The first such pair consisted of Jimmy Carter and the man he defeated in 1976, the late Gerald Ford. The second is George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, adversaries in 1992 when Clinton was first elected, who have worked together for philanthropic causes after Clinton left the White House in 2001.

However, that type of situation is not always friendly. It is said that Herbert Hoover refused to speak with his successor Franklin Roosevelt, when they rode together in a car to the Capitol for the latter's inauguration in 1933.

I bring this up now, to comment on reports of Barack and Michelle Obama's visit to the White House on Monday. Reports such as these in the Times and the Post, reflect reporters' anticipation that there would have been tension between Obama and President Bush, due to Obama's campaign-trail attacks on Bush's presidency.

For one thing, the people-skills of both of those men are such that they are able to carry off such an occasion, regardless of what went on during the campaign.

But I also think that the success of the occasion reflects the Bushes' acceptance of the Obamas into The Club. I suppose a president-elect becomes a member of The Club from the moment his election is assured. At that point, he is separated out from the much larger group of mere presidential wannabes. And those experiences that happen only to one who is elected to, or otherwise accedes to, that office, begin right then and there.

The visit to the White House by a president-elect has become a standard presidential ritual. As I see it, it serves three main purposes:

1. Symbolic show of continuity in government.
2. Substantive discussions between incoming and outgoing presidents.
3. The more practical consideration of the new first family, like any family, being curious about the details of their new home.

Bush and Obama seemed to sense the importance of #1, and they carried that off well.

The two met without staff, so all that will be known is what, if any, either of them chooses to reveal after the fact. Everyone assumes they discussed emergencies both economic and military.

According to reports of past such meetings, some were more successful than others. Jimmy Carter has said that, when he met with Ronald Reagan, subsequent to Reagan's victory over him in the 1980 election, Reagan seemed disengaged during their conversation. Carter and his staff took that to mean Reagan was ill-informed and unprepared for the presidency. My not unbiased view is that Reagan probably felt as though he had nothing to learn from Carter and was just going through the motions.

And the Bushes gave the Obamas a tour of the White House.