Bushes Welcome Obamas to Their New Home

President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, Nov. 10, 2008

(Eric Draper/White House )

Obama Opens Transition Office in Washington

The presidential changeover is taking place with major steps and small ones. For instance, the Secret Service came up with its code name for the incoming president, Renegade. Michelle Obama will be known to those who talk into their sleeves as Renaissance. The monickers for the Bushes is Tumbler and Tempo.

On a grander scale, Obama opened his transition office in Washington today and he is expected to announce more staff appointments this week, likely press secretary, White House counsel and domestic policy advisers.

High ranking economic and national security advisers and Cabinet secretaries are not expected to be unveiled this week.

Obama is being careful not to undermine Bush while waiting to take office Jan. 20. Obama will take part in a Veterans Day wreath-laying ceremony in Chicago Tuesday, but he has other public events scheduled. For Obama, today's visit marks a complex transition down Pennsylvania Avenue -- from the legislative branch, governed by the first section of the Constitution, at one end of the street, to the executive branch governed by the second at the other.

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"It takes a long time to figure out that the culture of Article 1 is very different than the culture of Article 2," Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution fellow who served on the staffs of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and advised Presidents Ford and Carter, said Friday during a panel.

The White House meeting today was one of many cooperative moves both Bush and Obama have vowed will be a hallmark of the transition.

A History of Reaching Across the Aisle

Obama has suggested he will select Republicans as well as Democrats for key positions. Incoming chief of staff Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill., reiterated Sunday on "This Week With George Stephanapoulos" that that's the way Obama will govern.

If the past is any indicator, that may be the way the president-elect chooses to do business. When Obama served as the president of the Harvard Law Review, the journal published legal writings across a broad ideological spectrum and he was credited for his balanced choices.

If Obama does pick people for top Cabinet positions from across the aisle, it will also not be unprecedented.

For instance, before taking office in 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy tapped Republican Clarence Douglas Dillon for Treasury secretary. Kennedy also selected Robert McNamara, a liberal Republican who was then president of Ford Motor Company, to be his secretary of defense.

More recently, Republican William Cohen was sworn in as defense secretary in 1997 under Democratic President Bill Clinton. When he took office in 2001, Bush appointed Democrat Norm Mineta, Clinton's commerce secretary, to be secretary of transportation.