In 2000, after the election in November, but before the outcome was clear, Jimmy Carter and other living ex-presidents came to Washington for some sort of anniversary of the White House.

At the time, I worked at a law firm in DC named Wilmer Cutler and Pickering. Lloyd Cutler had been Carter's White House counsel. One morning, I heard some commotion down the hall and poked my head out of my office, like everybody else on the hall. We saw men in suits with microphones standing outside the legal recruiting office and heard laughter coming from that office. Just about then, Carter emerged from the legal recruiting office and looked up and saw all of us staring at him. He smiled serenely and said something like, "When I was in the White House, I worked for Lloyd Cutler too." He then walked down the hall to Lloyd Cutler's office shaking everybody's hand on the way.

I don't know why, but he seemed to emanate this great sense of serenity. I imagine that one would feel the same way meeting the Dalai Lama.