WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush is spending Thanksgiving at his Camp David retreat, thankful for his almost-expired "privilege of serving as the president."
President-elect Barack Obama, left, kneels down to greet school children after making a surprise visit to St. Columbanus Catholic School on the South Side of Chicago, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008.
President-elect Barack Obama is staying in Chicago to "have a whole bunch of people over to the house" and squeeze in some Christmas shopping.
On a holiday designed for reflection, one man, historically unpopular, is heading to a remote Maryland mountaintop with his family. The other, promising change, is surrounding himself with dozens of people in a bustling city.
Dressed casually in a leather jacket and black scarf on Wednesday, Obama handed out food to the needy at a Chicago church with his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters, shaking hands and jovially telling people "you can call me Barack."
He followed that with a quick visit to a school next door, where he asked the excited kids, "Who's going to have turkey?" "Who's going to have green beans?" "Who's going to have sweet potato pie?"
Obama has shown a knack for symbolism, in this case following the Thanksgiving tradition of helping the poor, said David Greenberg, a Rutgers University historian. "Here he's showing a different side of himself, the president as national conscience or moral authority," he said.
In an interview broadcast on ABC, the Obamas told Barbara Walters they were having 60 people, at least, to their Chicago home for the holiday.
Michelle Obama said she's not cooking — explaining that she gets "an out" because her husband ran for president.
For Bush, his final Thanksgiving in office is proving a time for nostalgia. He always reflects a bit at Thanksgiving, but he went further this year.
He gave thanks to troops and volunteers, to teachers and pastors, to all the American people. Then he gave thanks for his wife and twin daughters — "two Thanksgiving miracles who we were blessed with 27 years ago" — and that his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, was doing well after being hospitalized.
"Most of all," he said, "I thank the American people for the tremendous privilege of serving as the president."
In 2003, months after the Iraq war began, Bush surprised soldiers serving in Baghdad by showing up unannounced in their mess hall for the holiday meal.
The more private celebration this year is fitting his lame-duck status, Greenberg said, calling Bush's retreat from the spotlight "kind of like a mutual agreement between him and the American public."
"In a way it would be unseemly if he did anything too flamboyant or too showy," he said.
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