TORONTO — Former President Bill Clinton really misses the presidency.

“All of a sudden, nobody plays the song anymore,” he told an audience here on Friday, referring to “Hail to the Chief,” the anthem played at all presidential events.

Former President George W. Bush hardly misses it at all. “Free at last,” he proclaimed before the same crowd at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. “I like being in Texas, and I do not miss the spotlight.”

But that was practically where the differences stopped as the two former presidents appeared for the first time on a stage together to discuss national and international policy. Each earned more than an estimated $150,000 for the appearance.

Some 6,000 people — or their corporate employers — paid from $200 to $2,500 to attend the event.

What they got was a glimpse of the strange-bedfellows-for-the-moment friendship between the two men as Bush has joined the exclusive club of former presidents with Clinton as his solicitous guide.

Clinton made it clear from the start that he would avoid any major clashes with Bush.

As they settled into overstuffed chairs, Bush and Clinton became something of an ex-presidents’ support group, avoiding direct critiques of each other, or, for that matter, their future club member, President Barack Obama.

When Clinton said one of his biggest regrets was the lack of U.S. action during the mass killings in Rwanda, saying, “I have no defense,” Bush responded, “I think you’re being a little tough on yourself.” He added that Clinton’s lament that he should have sent troops ignored the fact that such deployments are not so simply done.

When Bush, in response to a question from Frank McKenna, the former Canadian ambassador to the United States — who shared his question topics with the former presidents beforehand — defended his policy toward the Darfur region of Sudan, Clinton got his back, in return. “I think he did about all he could do,” he said.

If there was anything that even bordered on a sharp exchange, it was the discussion over Iraq. Clinton said he would have preferred for Bush to have given weapons inspectors more time in Iraq before invading and, in the meantime, “concentrated on Afghanistan.” Bush responded, with a hint of irritation, “I don’t buy the premise that our attention was distracted,” a reference to those who have said the Iraq war came at the expense of progress in Afghanistan.