Kanye West Empathizes With George Bush

Feel better, George Bush. Kanye West understands your pain.

Though the rapper was ostensibly the architect of Bush's worst presidential moment, he's had his own cross to bear in the past year and is extending a friendly hand to the ex-President.

"Well I definitely can understand the way he feels to be accused of being a racist in any way," West, 30, said on a Houston radio station, The Box. "Because the same thing happened to me, you know, where I got accused of being racist. And with both situations, it was basically a lack of compassion that America saw in that situation."

Of course, Bush's situation was his administration's inability to offer effective assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, whereas West's situation was his drunken rush of the stage to humiliate Taylor Swift during the 2009 MTV VMAs. But West puts it in his own words. "With him it was a lack of compassion, with him not rushing, you know, him taking the time time to rush down to New Orleans," he said. "With me, it was a lack of compassion of cutting someone off in their moment."

Some good has come out of all of this: West feels like he really gets where Bush is coming from. "And the poetic justice that I feel, to have went through the same thing that he went," he said. "Now I really more connect with him on a humanitarian level … because the next morning, when he felt that, I felt the same thing."

But before Bush gets too excited about his new camaraderie with Mr. West, he should know that their shared moment meant less to the rapper than to him. Speaking of Swift, West seemed enraptured by the power of the incident. "It's an amazing, compelling situation," he said. "The situation is bigger to me than the Bush moment." –AMY LEE