NEW YORK, March 15 (UPI) -- George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, once foes on the campaign trial, have forged a relationship rare in U.S. politics -- former presidents who like each other.
Bush, defeated by Clinton in a run for a second term as president, has joined his successor in a campaign for relief funds for victims of last December's Indian Ocean tsunami. In the process they have warmed to each other on a personal level.
Thomas Schwartz, a historian at Vanderbilt University, told the Christian Science Monitor it shouldn't be a surprise the men who led the United States should find a common bond.
"I think the friendship reflects the rather unique pressures on a president, and the feeling that only one who had had the burden can understand those pressures," he said. "This personal bond seems to cut across the pressures of partisanship, although, truth be told, it hasn't happened very often in our history."
The best instance of such a relationship is John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, bitter opponents in public life but long-time correspondents after leaving Washington. The Monitor reports Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford have a friendly -- although very private -- relationship.
