While speaking at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga‘s Constitution Day event, author and political analyst Yuval Levin described the “surreal” experience of having his portrait painted by former President George W. Bush.
Levin, who was born in Israel and moved to the United States when he was 8 years old, was painted for a book of portraits of immigrants Bush completed in his retirement.
When Levin became a U.S. citizen at 19, he recalled that the judge presiding over the ceremony said that from then on, when referring to Americans he would need to say “us” and “we” rather than “they” and “them.” He connected the judge’s comment to the topic of his lecture, in which he discussed the Constitution as a framework for national unity.
“‘We’ is the way to think about our society, and too often we talk about Americans as ‘they,’ and not as ‘we,'” said Levin, who served in the White House as special assistant to the president for domestic policy from 2004-2007. “To my mind, that project of President Bush’s to highlight the place of immigrants in American society is also a way of helping all Americans and not just immigrants say ‘we’ a little more often when we think about the people who have the incredible opportunity to live in this country as Americans.”
Political analyst tells UTC audience that unity means acting together, not thinking alike
Levin’s credentials also include founder and editor in chief of National Affairs and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He serves as director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and is the author of “American Covenant: How the Constitution Unifies our Nation – and Could Again.”