Nearly a quarter of a century after she became a pioneer in the push for civility toward gays and lesbians, Ellen DeGeneres found herself at the forefront of a new kind of culture war. The very online Left took umbrage at the talk show host’s jovial appearance with former President George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys football game over the weekend. And in a very on-brand twist, DeGeneres addressed with issue head on.

Rather than detail the most unsavory of the criticism — chief among them, Parker Molloy of Media Matters branding Bush a “war criminal” and excoriating his past positions on gay marriage — DeGeneres used one part sincerity and two parts comedy to describe the ethos guiding her decision to deem Bush her “friend” in the first place.