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BOW DOWN BEFORE LORD BUSH ALL YOU PEASANTS.NOT MOI. COUNT ME OUT FOLKS The"HardWork"ofBeingEmperor by William Norman Grigg August 19, 2005

President Bush recently complained about the demands of his job -- between long mountain bike rides and visits to Little League games during his five-week vacation.

Being a "war president," George W. Bush has often remarked, is "hard work." The president’s most recent reminder of the rigors of his office came during remarks to the press just before a lengthy bike ride on his ersatz ranch in Texas, where he is spending five weeks on vacation.

The tranquility of the president’s retreat has been disturbed by a small but growing crowd of anti-war protesters gathered around Cindy Sheehan, mother of a 24-year-old soldier who was killed in Iraq last year. Mrs. Sheehan, like millions of other Americans (many of whom do not share most of her political views), recognizes that the administration lied our nation into the disastrous war in Iraq. Understandably angered over the loss of her son, she is demanding that Mr. Bush meet her face-to-face to give an accounting for his decisions.

George W. Bush once famously remarked that he doesn’t "do nuance." It’s similarly clear that he doesn’t "do" accountability. In any case, the burdens of his office are simply too great for him to spare time for the grieving mother of a young man he sent to die for no good reason.

"I think it’s important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say," Mr. Bush told reporters, expressing – in less elegant language – a sentiment that could have emanated from Bill "I Feel Your Pain" Clinton. "But I think it’s also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life." He then saddled up his $3,000 Trek Fuel mountain bike for a two-hour excursion in the company of adoring reporters, one of whom gushed: "The most powerful man in the world is also a heck of a mountain bike rider." Later Mr. Bush was ferried by helicopter to a Little League baseball game, thereby avoiding any uncomfortable contact with Mrs. Sheehan and the protesters who had camped outside the entrance to the miniscule Bush "ranch."

The protest of Cindy Sheehan and her colleagues at "Camp Casey" is equal parts quixotic quest and media stunt. The president is as eager to avoid Camp Casey as he was to exploit the National Scout Jamboree in Virginia.

In late July, about three hundred people collapsed from heat prostration while awaiting Mr. Bush’s arrival, unaware that the presidential visit had been postponed because of the threat of thunderstorms. More than 40,000 Scouts and hundreds of additional visitors stood for hours, basting in unbearable humidity as temperatures climbed near the century mark. One Scout described the scene as "ridiculous," recalling: "I, myself, saw 50 people either passed out or being carried away."

After a second postponement, the president finally made a belated appearance. In terms of content, the resulting speech was typically unremarkable. Also typical was the way in which it was staged as a promotion of Mr. Bush as a "war president." A Reuters account pointed out that in preparation for the speech, "men in black Army T-shirts coached young boys to chant `ooo-rah’ like soldiers. A giant `ARMY’ balloon bobbed over the crowd." The speech also included a veiled pitch for enlistment and involvement in federally approved national service programs.

It’s not entirely cynical to conclude that Mr. Bush used the Jamboree to fish among the impressionable Scouts for a fresh supply of Casey Sheehans. While there is nothing innately wrong with encouraging young people to serve our nation in the military, there is something perverse about using Scouts as props in what amounts to a photo-op – particularly when the abortive first attempt involved a serious risk of death by heat prostration.

Many present at the Jamboree described the presidential visit as a "privilege" well worth all of the trouble it entailed. Presumably this is because Mr. Bush is, as noted above, "the most powerful man in the world." A similar belief is probably at the foundation of Cindy Sheehan’s desire to confront the president.

"The president we get is the country we get," insists liberal novelist E.L. Doctorow. "With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul….[T]he media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail."

Doctorow wrote those words in condemnation of Mr. Bush’s official actions. The president’s cultishly devoted supporters say pretty much the same thing by way of extolling what they consider to be his virtues. But the role of architect of our national soul is found nowhere in the Constitution’s austere description of presidential powers. In establishing the presidency, the Founders deliberately created a weak office with limited and highly qualified powers.

Unfortunately, the president, be he a Republican or a Democrat, has become the ceremonial figurehead for a self-perpetuating elitist clique that keeps our nation deeply entangled in conflicts abroad. Our nation’s involvement in wars and foreign crises for most of the past century has resulted in the creation of an office that in many ways amounts to an elected dictatorship.

Rather than being seen as the head of one branch of the federal government, the president is increasingly viewed as something akin to a Divine Emperor-King. Not only is the president the "the sole organ of the nation" in foreign affairs, as Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland incorrectly stated, but also, as E.L. Doctorow and others would have it, he is the "artificer of our soul" and the very "face of our sky."

Ironically, George W. Bush would be well suited to the presidency – as that office was originally designed. His skill set equips him for few private sector tasks more demanding than working as a Wal-Mart greeter, but this wouldn’t disqualify him for the presidency as defined in the Constitution. He’s hardly qualified to be the "most powerful man on earth" – but then again, nobody else is, either.

Paring back the powers of the presidency to constitutional proportions, beginning with congressional re-assertion of the sole power to commit our nation to war, would relieve Mr. Bush and his successors of much of the "hard work" that comes with being the de facto ruler of the world. Much more importantly, it would be a great relief to Americans who have to pay the price -- both in wealth and the irreplaceable lives of men like Casey Sheehan – of the stupid and destructive foreign conflicts into which imperial presidents have repeatedly thrust our nation.

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