Story highlights Jen Psaki: In a week of political turmoil, remarks by Bush and Obama were a rebuke to Trump's misrepresentation of US values

She says they offered a reminder that we are living in a time when language, political passion are being used to divide us. And it is not normal.

Jen Psaki, a CNN political commentator, was the White House communications director and State Department spokeswoman during the Obama administration. She is vice president of communications and strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow her at @jrpsaki. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN) We spent this week debating whether or not past presidents of the United States reached out to the families of the men and women who bravely lost their lives serving our country. That is how low our politics have sunk.

But on Thursday we had a break from this: we saw an uncoordinated moment of unity from the last two men who served as president -- two men who have had their share of differences on policy issues from Iraq to health care. On this day, they reminded us that everything isn't about politics. That the division that has been stoked along racial lines, the personal attacks, the lies and venom coming from the current President are not normal. And we can't forget that.

In remarks that seemed as bookends, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama reminded us of who we are and what this country and our values are based on, regardless of who is occupying the Oval Office.

President Donald Trump wasn't actually mentioned by name in either of the past presidents' remarks. Their addresses weren't complicated or policy heavy. They were about human decency.

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They were about the American values that we have begun to feel slipping away. Bush said in his speech -- at an event in New York dubbed "The Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In The World"-- "Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication."

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