On Monday, the two introduced a joint program to train young leaders through a collaboration of their presidential libraries and those of the elder George Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson.
“I actually learned a lot watching him over the years,” Mr. Clinton said of Mr. Bush’s leadership.
“He’s an awesome communicator,” Mr. Bush said of the man who defeated his father in the 1992 presidential election. “He can really lay out a case and get people all across the political spectrum to listen.”
The discussion, at the Newseum in Washington, stood as a lighthearted reminder of how much can change in politics after a president leaves office, and how much, after their presidencies, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton have come together, even as they embrace very different agendas.
Mr. Bush has lived a comparatively quiet life in Texas, with a focus on his paintings (“I’m trying to leave something behind,” he said of his art.) He promoted his coming book about his father, which he called a “love story.”
Mr. Clinton, meanwhile, has taken on a public role through the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation and has been a near constant presence on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates in the 2014 midterm elections.
The Presidential Leadership Scholars program, which will inaugurate its first class in February, aims to train students at each of the four presidential libraries, with speakers from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas A&M University in College Station, and the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, among others.
At the start of the talk, the elder Mr. Bush appeared in a video to discuss the program. The other two former presidents did not talk about current events; rather, they spoke in broad generalities about the stress of the job, and they avoided any discussion of President Obama, the emergence of ISIS, and how the decisions they made in office might have affected the current administration.
Instead, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush focused on what they learned in the White House and how it could inform future leaders. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former senator and secretary of state, who is a potential 2016 presidential candidate, watched from the fourth row of an audience packed with Bush and Clinton White House alumni.
Mr. Clinton said that while he did not always agree with Mr. Bush’s decisions, he “watched the way he thought through things and tried to approach them with clarity and decisiveness, and with great admiration.”
He said that throughout his second term, Mr. Bush would call his predecessor and they would talk for 30 or 40 minutes. The phone calls, Mr. Clinton, said “made me feel good.” Both presidents benefited from being underestimated, Mr. Clinton said, at one point placing his hand on Mr. Bush’s knee.
Mr. Bush displayed a self-deprecating humor that endeared him to the bipartisan crowd. At one point, Mr. Clinton complained about the constant requests to pose for selfies when he goes to a restaurant. Mr. Bush interrupted: “At least they’re still asking.”
A version of this article appears in print on September 9, 2014, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Laughs and Accolades as Clinton and Bush Introduce a Leadership Program.
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