Obama, Bush meet in the White House

Before today, the last time Barack Obama was in the White House was two months ago in the midst of the unfolding financial crisis.

Senator Obama and Senator John McCain came to the hastily called meeting to address the collapse of the financial sector and to discuss the pending bailout bill in Congress.

Today Obama returned to the White House as President-elect of the United States, having just won an election victory larger than any Bush himself ever achieved. The afternoon meeting took place along with their spouses, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. The two presidents sat down to discuss transition matters while Mrs. Bush took Mrs. Obama on a tour of the upper floors of the White House residence.

True to form after what was by all accounts a remarkably well-run campaign, the Obamas arrived a few minutes early at the South Portico of the White House. The last Democratic president was not known for his punctuality.

The White House get together took place just as new polls released indicated that George Bush has become the most unpopular president in modern history. With a disapproval rating of 76 percent, the highest since modern polling began, the outgoing president may have hoped that a little bit of Obama's popularity would rub off on him.

The meeting on Monday was part of a tradition that takes place routinely in American politics when one family replaces another in the nation's executive mansion. But for the first time in history, the incoming first family will be African American. And, for what won't be the first time, the incoming family will be bringing a dog along.

Michelle Obama will also be scouting out schools for their daughters, Malia and Sasha, who will be moving from Chicago to Washington in January. When Democrats come to office, given their support for the public school system and their typical opposition to vouchers, speculation tends to swirl as to whether the first children will attend public or private schools. The last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, put his daughter Chelsea in an exclusive private school, Sidwell Friends. The family is also said to be looking at two other private schools, Georgetown Day School and Maret School, both of which have fees between $25,000 and $30,000, according to news reports.

Despite the goodwill awaiting the new first family, the challenges ahead for the new president will be daunting. Only 16 percent of those surveyed in a new CNN poll said the country was headed in the right direction, while 83 percent said things are going badly. Those numbers are worse than in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted because of the economy, worse than in 1980 when President Carter was voted out of office, and worse even than 1975 after Watergate and the Nixon pardon, according to CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.