When Barack Obama took the oath of office as president in 2009, George W. Bush wished him well and left the political stage, determined to never publicly criticize his successor. It is a vow he kept for the entire eight years of Obama’s presidency. Indeed, Bush has given only one political speech since leaving office — and that was for his brother Jeb in 2016.
Even when Obama attacked him repeatedly from the presidential bully pulpit and reversed many of his policies, Bush kept silent. Bush did it not simply as a courtesy. He understood better than almost anyone the incredible pressures of the presidency and felt it was his moral duty not to make the job any harder. So, he adhered to the standard of grace and decency to which all former presidents should aspire.
For a while it seemed that Obama — the beneficiary of Bush’s grace and decency — would follow the 43rd president’s example. But a little more than 18 months after leaving office, Obama has apparently decided that he is too important to stay on the sidelines.
Obama broke his silence in a speech to students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he declared that he had fully intended “on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage” but changed his mind because “this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are.” (With all due respect, this is exactly how many conservatives felt about his time in office).