Five Living Presidents

This picture was taken recently. It's the five living US Presidents. It got me wondering how many similar photos have been taken. I found two other examples when this kind of thing has happened. "This kind of thing" meaning the incoming President has a photo-op with his predecessors.

Here we have Bush the Elder with Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon.


And a decade earlier, here's Reagan with Carter, Ford and Nixon.


I found a couple more interesting couplings.

Clinton and Ford.


More interesting, Clinton and Reagan.

It's not easy to find pictures of Ronnie after he retired.

And finally, Nixon and Truman.


But, I cheated a bit on this one because Nixon is only Vice President in this photo. Still, they make a handsome couple.

It's somewhat fascinating to see all of these men stand next to each other with big grins on their melting faces. It wasn't all that long ago in human history that the normal practice on seeing your political enemy was to throw a blunt heavy object at their head. In fact, that's still the norm in a lot of country's today. To see Obama and Bush, Reagan and Carter and Nixon, Bush and Clinton put aside their bitter partisan disagreements is to look at a tangible example of our country's founding principles.

In my search, I also came across these drawings of 20th Century Presidents (plus Bush the Younger) kicking back with the founder of their respective parties. Hey man, it's just dude's beeing dudes. Can I bum a smoke, Frankie?

Above: An accurate depiction of what Andrew Jackson would have done with time travel technology.


Both drawings have notable absences. Obviously, the Democrat picture was drawn before 1/20/09. But there's five famous faces missing from the Grand Ole Poker Party. Granted there were more Republican Presidents last century, so it would be harder to fit them all in one frame. But I don't think any Republican would complain about Harding, Coolidge and Hoover not getting standard bearer status. And adding McKinley would just confuse people that John McCain had somehow been sworn in on accident.