ClayNation: Presidential separation of sport, state up for debate

President George W. Bush no longer plays golf because, "I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

When a reader e-mailed me this story last week, my first reaction was stunned disbelief -- could the president have chosen any less significant response to the war? After all George W. Bush hasn't stopped riding his mountain bike, jogging, throwing out opening pitches at baseball games, or hauling trees and branches on his Texas ranch. Presumably he hasn't given up swimming or stopped watching sports on television. Nope, he's just latched on to one particular sport, golf, and he hasn't even taken a principled stand for something, he's just quit.

Was the decision to quit playing golf the right type of action from President Bush?   58%  No     42%  Yes     Total Votes: 574

According to Bush he made this decision in the summer of 2003. A cynic would point out that this decision was made just in time for the 2004 presidential campaign to begin in earnest and shortly after Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 lampooned Bush for making a pronouncement about the war on terror from the golf course and then saying, "Now, watch this drive."

But our presidents never think about elections. They're far too busy hewing steadfastly to their principles to allow public opinion to sway them. It's not like former president Bill Clinton conducted a poll to decide where to take his summer vacation and then went hiking and camping in the wilderness because that's what people wanted him to do. Wait ... he did. Scratch that idea.

We expect our presidents and would-be presidents to appreciate sports. Imagine the calamity that would ensue if John McCain or Barack Obama held a news conference and said, "I hate football." Chances are the candidate who said this wouldn't get elected president. We'd come up with all sorts of fancy reasons why this statement didn't truly influence our vote and how it was indicative of the distance between the candidate and the mythical and outdated Joe Sixpack. But it would sit there, eating at our craw, the man we trust with the nuclear codes, the man we expect to foment peace in a globalized world of shifting and uncertain alliances, of constant threats and late night phone calls, doesn't like football? Not on this watch. That's because we demand leaders be sports fans first and foremost in their leisure time.

Prior to the war, President Bush made sure to look good on his stroll to the tee box. (Getty Images)

The Kennedys played touch football, Bill Clinton memorably played golf (taking ample "Billigans" in the process), Richard Nixon sent plays he'd concocted to the Washington Redskins, Gerald Ford played football for Michigan, Obama plays basketball (and bowls horribly), Lyndon Johnson took Senate colleagues to Washington Senators games where he hectored them until they agreed to cast votes in his favor, Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard, George Bush Sr. played baseball at Yale, Hillary Clinton has always been a Yankee fan (except for the two decades when she was a Cubs fan), John McCain sat ringside for Mayweather-De La Hoya, John Kerry went windsurfing (resulting in this gleeful parody in 2004), and, until now, countless presidents have played golf -- the sport of America's titans of industry, politics, and sport.

There's even been a great and hysterical book written by Don Van Natta Jr. about presidents on the golf course. The book utilizes golf as a window into the soul of our presidents.

In reading the book I don't remember any president ever quitting because golf sent the wrong signal in a time of war. Quitting because they were frustrated and angered by the sport, yes, but never because playing the game itself was disrespectful in a time of war.

Descartes memorably wrote, "I think therefore, I am." So does Bush's abandoning golf signal a new rule of wartime first fandom; "I golf not, therefore I am president?"

Furthermore, what sort of interesting questions does giving up a sport in a time of war force upon future leaders? Especially if we're to believe that the war on terror is a never-ending one that requires eternal vigilance. What's appropriate sporting activity and what's not? George W. Bush almost choked to death on a pretzel while watching a football game, but he didn't quit watching football. He's tumbled over the handlebars of his mountain bike and injured himself, but he didn't quit mountain biking. He's injured his knees from the repetitive stress of jogging, but he didn't quit jogging. Yet, without injury, he's given up golf. Do countless soldiers not tee off in America at a time of war? Don't their superior officers as well? Who draws the line on the appropriate action of the sporting public when it comes to the first fan? Have we really reached a time when presidential candidates have to give the Heisman to their sports of choice if they want to be president? Put another way, could an avid soccer fan ever be elected president?

With no war experience of his own, it was easy to see how Bush thought the driver was a rifle. (Getty Images)

For a man who prides himself on the directness of his beliefs, ceasing his golf play is a particularly nuanced sporting move by the president. You either think it's a ridiculous and insignificant gesture that trivializes over 4,000 Iraq war deaths or you think it's a symbolic gesture that demonstrates a degree of empathy and depth of understanding that thousands of words do not.

Or maybe you don't particularly care at all what President Bush does or does not do on the golf course and think it's just the latest sign that there is no longer any private life in American society. It used to be we viewed our presidents' sporting pastimes, flaws, and unique quirks as indicative of their own humanity.

Now we take a break from watching sports on television and shopping for our latest must-have trinket to assume that a president who is golfing isn't sufficiently serious about his job in a time of war. In the end, maybe that says a lot more about us than it does about our president's own private war against par.