Bush is diplomatic on subject of Obama

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By Joseph Curl

The couple moved to an exclusive enclave in Dallas, and Mr. Bush, former two-term governor of Texas, said he hadn't walked in a neighborhood for 14 years. Walking his dog, Barney, he said, "the little fella' sees this unbelievably manicured yard and there I was, former president, with a plastic bag on my hand, picking up that which I had dodged for eight solid years."

Mr. Clinton, in a light-brown suit with a bright orange tie, said, "There is no job description for a former president.

"I'm amazed President Bush is here," he said. "It takes a while, actually, to figure out you're not president anymore."

He said "nobody plays a song when you walk into a room now," noting that "Hail to the Chief" once rang out on his every entrance. "It's totally disorienting; I was lost for three months."

There are, he said, pluses and minuses of leaving the presidency.

"The great thing about not being president anymore is I can say whatever I want, about anything," he said, but he noted that now, "of course, nobody really cares what I say."

"And now I have the worst of all worlds — my wife has become the secretary of state, so no one really cares what I say — unless I mess up," he said to laughter.

The two former presidents later sat in large, green leather chairs to answer friendly questions from a moderator, former Canadian ambassador to the United States Frank McKenna. They mused over just a few hand-picked questions on Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, AIDS, Rwanda, Darfur, same-sex marriage and the new passport requirements at the U.S.-Canadian border — to which both professed little knowledge.

Mr. Bush, a Republican, and Mr. Clinton, a Democrat, differed most on Iraq.

"We should've concentrated on Afghanistan," Mr. Clinton said, who noted he had supported a resolution in Congress to employ force.