Clinton sleeps on floor so elder Bush can have bed
Sunday, March 6, 2005 Posted: 6:28 PM EST (2328 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) — On their tour of tsunami damage in Southeast Asia, former President Bill Clinton once allowed his predecessor, former President George H.W. Bush, to sleep on the plane’s only bed while he stretched out on the floor.

There’s a lesson here in civility and respect. It takes a special kind of man to behave this way when he and his family have been so savagely libeled, slandered, and otherwise defamed by pit bulls in service to the Bush dynasty, I think.

I used to wonder aloud, back before I gave up incredulity for Lent, how Southern Protestants could convince themselves that a Southern Baptist who grew up poor in Arkansas was somehow the devil while a pack of New England carpetbaggers born with silver spoons up their asses was their kind of folks. I have repeatedly argued that the rabid, malicious, hate-mongering Right doesn’t represent the beliefs of America’s real Christians, people driven by goodwill and charity, people who actually look to the example of Jesus instead of Wildmon, Falwell, Robertson, Coulter and Phelps for their cues on how to treat their fellow humans.

It sounds like President Clinton, on that plane ride, acted in a way that my beloved grandmother, Helen Smith, would have recognized as Christian.

It will be interesting to tune in today to see how Rush Limbaugh links Clinton’s selfless act to Whitewater.