I have been listening intently to the testimony of a former foe of the late President George H.W. Bush about how they became friends.

Former President Bill Clinton defeated President Bush in 1992. Bush was seeking re-election, but a faltering economy and a broken campaign pledge to never raise taxes did him in.

Clinton and Bush went nose-to-nose — along with the banty rooster Dallas billionaire Ross Perot. Clinton won with 43 percent of the popular vote, but also with a substantial Electoral College majority.

Bush and Clinton were drawn together in 2004 when President George W. Bush assigned them to raise money for tsunami relief for Southeast Asia. That was when their friendship formed. It grew over time and cemented itself indelibly.

Theirs is not the only friendship formed out of political adversity.

I think also of how two earlier adversaries became BFFs over time. President Gerald Ford lost his bid for election to Jimmy Carter in 1976. That campaign was equally harsh and ferocious. Moments after taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1977, President Carter turned to his predecessor and thanked for “all he did to heal the country” after the Watergate scandal of 1972-74.

The two men forged a close friendship that lasted until President Ford’s death in 2006.

These friendships, I am saddened to say, seem to be too rare of an occurrence.

President George W. Bush isn’t exactly best of pals with Al Gore and John Kerry, the men he defeated in 2000 and 2004. One didn’t see President Carter and President Reagan chumming around after Reagan defeated Carter’s bid for re-election in 1980. President Obama did deliver some touching and heartfelt remarks at Sen. John McCain’s funeral earlier this year, but those 2008 foes didn’t spend a lot of time off the clock with each other; nor do President Obama and Mitt Romney, his defeated 2012 opponent.

I’ll add that George W. Bush and Clinton have become friendly over the years, given Clinton’s professed “love” of Bush 41 and the notion that the elder Bushes “adopted” Clinton as another of their sons; that means “W” and Clinton see themselves as brothers with different mothers.

That brings me to the current president. What kind of relationship can Donald J. Trump ever have with the foe he vanquished in 2016, the woman he calls “Crooked Hillary” Clinton? Indeed, how many political friends has the president cultivated during his time in office and will those relationships last after he leaves the presidency?

Still, I take pleasure in listening to the tales of how political foes can become friends. It’s one of the shining virtues of our nation’s extraordinary political makeup.