Bush gives up golf

In a silly interview with Mike Allen of Politico, President Bush explained, apparently for the first time, why he had not played golf since August, 2003. He can remember the precise day, in fact, because his decision was prompted by news that U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello had been killed by a truck bomb in Baghdad. This induced a spasm of introspection in our beloved leader:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

The usual fly-speckers in the blogosphere and cynical press pointed out some discrepancies in this heart-warming story. First, Bush did not give up playing golf on August 19, 2003. He played on October 13, 2003, again sending the wrong signal to grieving American moms and calling into question the depth of his commitment to solidarity. Between these two events (Bush's epiphany about inappropriate frivolity and his round of golf in October), in September, 2003, Bush announced that he had a torn meniscus in his knee, which the buzzkill press is now suggesting might have been the more proximate and efficient cause of Bush's retirement from the golf course.

It's almost like the sucker lied to us. He didn't give up golf because of America's grieving moms; he gave it up because his knee ached. That's disappointing. I thought it was a pretty good story.

The mainstream media are usually all over this kind of trivia, but I haven't seen anything specifically addressing an important historical sidebar: how have other Presidents handled the problem of playing golf during war time? The Korean War, for example, lasted until the ceasefire agreement of July, 1953, which means for about six months Ike, an enthusiastic golfer, was President. I don't know if Truman played golf and I'm too lazy to look it up. Nixon played golf, sort of, although he looked very klutzy (he also looked very klutzy walking, talking or sitting still). Since the Vietnam War was in progress, at varying levels of intensity during the entire Nixon presidency, he must have played golf concurrently. Why didn't Nixon care about showing solidarity with America's grieving moms? Ike gets a pass because he was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II, which means his solidarity was a given.

Clinton was a golfer, but I don't care about him because he was faking the whole Commander-in-Chief thing from the get-go. No one took him seriously as a war president, and he wasn't too involved in war anyway, except for occasional Monica-timed bombing runs over Iraq, blowing up pharmaceutical factories in the Sudan, and Kosovo, and no one could ever figure out Kosovo because Americans weren't dying, only people whom Bush would describe, speaking English "as best as he could," as Kosovasarians.

Anyway, I think Bush, in his usual modest way, is encouraging us to think of him in Christ-like terms. He's taking it all upon himself. While the war drags on and Americans and Iraqis keep dying, and moms here at home and over there keep grieving, we can all shop with our stimulus checks and let him pay the price for us. That he so loved the grieving moms of America that he gave up his misbegotten game of golf so that they might know they weren't alone.