WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The Bush administration and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's transition team are cooperating to an unprecedented extent, observers and participants say.
There have rarely been such immediate and important challenges facing a president-elect, and President George Bush has responded by giving Obama's transition team full access to the White House, enabling them to move quickly on the financial crisis, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
"I'm not sure I've ever seen an outgoing administration work as hard at saying the right thing," Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess, who has been involved in presidential transitions since the Eisenhower administration, told the Post. "This is really quite memorable."
Bush has made a smooth White House transition his top priority, saying in a radio address Saturday, "My administration will work hard to ensure that the next president and his team can hit the ground running."
Bush and Obama were scheduled to meet at the White House Monday in an atmosphere observers say has been remarkable for its congeniality after a hard-hitting campaign in which Obama won partly by portraying Republican opponent Sen. John McCain of Arizona as a third Bush term, the Post reported.
