Obama and Boehner prepare to tee off

House Speaker John Boehner has been trading barbs with the White House this week over whether the NATO military operations in Libya violate the War Powers Act. That topic, among others, may very well come up when Boehner and President Barack Obama play their first round of golf together Saturday.

"I think it's fair for everyone here to assume that they will discuss all the - in a general way - some of the business out there that they have between them, including the deficit reduction talks," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

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The many issues that divide the president and the House speaker aren't likely to be settled on the links, but 18 holes of golf will bring the two men together in a way that's very different from their usual dealings, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante.

Here's how Boehner put it on "60 Minutes": "Playing golf with someone is a great way to really get to know someone. You start trying to hit that little white ball, you can't be somebody you're not because all of you shows up."

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For a president without many close ties to people in Congress, says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a round of golf is a chance to bond with the Speaker, to "build a kind of relationship where he can make a call at 11 at night and say, 'John, we've got a problem and you and I need to fix it.'"

That's the way things used to be. Republican President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill used to boast about being political enemies by day but friends at night.

"We used to sit there after 6 o'clock at night and the two old Irishmen would tell stories to one another," said Ken Duberstein, President Reagan's last chief of staff. He remembers a tense briefing at which the White House told Congressional leaders the U.S. was about to invade the island of Grenada.

"Meeting ends, and Tip O'Neill - I'll never forget - walks over and says, 'God bless you, Mr. President. I'll be there for you.'"

Maybe President Obama and Speaker Boehner won't get that close, says Plante, but a few hours chasing a little white ball in the grass can't hurt.