President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush appeared together at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas for an interfaith memorial service honoring the five officers who were slain in the city's downtown last Friday.
Both gave eloquent speeches before joining hands with their wives and many local officials in solidarity for the victims.
During his speech, Bush said, "Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions."
Less than an hour later, Twitter users would be passionately judging and defending him, sometimes cruelly, and not for anything he said.
After both Obama and Bush gave speeches in which they encouraged the country to seek more unity, the current and former first couples stood on stage in a line.
The band launched into the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the couples moved closer together, grasping each other's hands. Also in the chain of linked hands were Vice President Joe Biden, Dallas Police Chief David Brown, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and others.
Throughout the nearly five-minute song, most of the chain remained solemn, swaying with the music and at least mouthing the lyrics. Bush, clad in a brighter blue suit than the others, appeared to be a bit more moved by the music and the mood. He swayed to the music, swinging his arms — his wife Laura's and first lady Michelle Obama's arms swinging along with them but not necessarily voluntarily. He also briefly smiled, even as the others remained solemn.
He was feeling the spirit. Please, allow him to sway on.
Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile
His reaction seemed to be in keeping with his speech, in which he said, "We don't want the unity of grief, nor do we want the unity of fear. We want the unity of hope."
Reports of Bush's impassioned swaying, which many called "dancing," began to circulate on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook in videos, gifs and written accounts.
Almost immediately, voices on social media were far from unified — instead, they were sharply divided.
Some considered the impassioned and sometimes awkward swaying to be inappropriate, unpresidential and disrespectful.
One user called Bush's reaction "absolutely bizarre." Another tweeted simply, "good grief."
More than one user questioned if Bush had been drinking alcohol. Some accused him of using cocaine. Several people were even so cruel to suggest — lacking any evidence and just after he had just given a clear, concise and moving speech — that the former president might be suffering from the beginning stages of dementia.
Others, though, found his reaction to be one of solidarity, unity and love.
"Let the man dance!" one user tweeted, continuing, "I'd rather watch Pres. Bush dance than ever have to see Trump again." Another tweeted, "I thought it was a sweet moment." A third echoed the sentiment, stating, "don't like him but thought it was a sweet moment with Michelle Obama."
Another simply said, "I liked it."
(It should be noted that in many Southern states, funerals are not entirely solemn affairs. The most common example takes place in New Orleans. Lines of jazz musicians often form a second line after a funeral procession and play upbeat music while attendees march through the city's cracked streets, dancing to celebrate the deceased's life. In cities such as Charleston, S.C., gospel funerals that shift tonally between celebratory music and mournful dirges are not uncommon.)
Perhaps one of Bush's most surprising defenders was Donna Brazile, the Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation at the Democratic National Committee, a Democratic political strategist and a prominent TV commentator. Brazile, a black New Orleans native, worked on the Louisiana Recovery Board following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Bush was widely criticized for the federal government's reaction to the storm. The Washington Post named it the second worst moment of his presidency, and Kanye West infamously took to live television to say, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
After The Hill compiled a short list of (only) negative social media reactions to Bush's dancing, Brazile tweeted in defense of the former president.
Brazile tweeted, "He was feeling the spirit. Please, allow him to sway on."
She wasn't the only one who overlooked differences with the former president to come to his defense.
"I didn't vote for him but he's a good man and obviously emotional today. His Town, his people," one user tweeted. "Well done GW!! And, I'm not usually a fan!" tweeted another.
Unsurprisingly, many media outlets got in on the debate. Gawker wrote that "George W. Bush . . . was ready to (expletive) party," while The New Republic called the "moment dopey but endearing" and called much of the social media response "cheap outrage politics."
In their speeches in Dallas on Tuesday, both Obama and Bush spoke on the importance of unity. Speaking of the recent spate of mass shootings, Obama said, "They will not drive us apart. We can decide to come together."
If the online reaction to the presidents literally coming together is any indication, those words may have fallen on deaf ears.