President or ruler? (The Last Word).

"God supports President Bush," proclaimed a sign displayed at a February 23rd pro war rally at the Alamo. By saying that God is on President Bush's side, as opposed to the reverse, the sign placed The Almighty in the curious position of cheerleader.

Of course, the president is not responsible for unwise claims made on his behalf by some of his supporters. But Mr. Bush himself has said similarly troubling things about his view of presidential powers.

In an interview with the Washington Post's Robert Woodward, President Bush offered a very telling answer when asked if he ever felt compelled to explain his policies and decisions. "Of course not," replied the president. "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

When the president claims not to answer to anyone in exercising the powers of office, does he include God among those to whom that claim applies? Or does he refer only to Congress and the American people? In fact, he cannot mean the latter without implying the former. If Mr. Bush honestly believes that he doesn't "owe anybody an explanation" for his decisions, he perjured himself at his inauguration when he took a solemn oath, before God, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." By this act President Bush attested that he would subordinate himself to the Constitution, and that he answers to the American people for the exercise of his limited powers.

The president's subordinate role extends to his role as the military's commander in chief. Contrary to what Mr. Bush and entirely too many of his supporters believe, the president is not "commander in chief" over the American people. The president is commander in chief of the armed forces. But in carrying out that function, the president must answer to Congress, uniquely authorized to "declare war" and to "raise and support armies." Most American citizens unaffiliated with the armed forces do not have a "commander" of any sort -- an important point to remember when commentators breezily refer to the president as "our commander in chief."

As Mr. Bush said, his is an "interesting" view of the powers of the presidency, one that's ironically similar to that of the contemporary leader who claimed: "Law consists of two lines above my signature." The author of that memorable line -- Saddam Hussein -- is, unlike President Bush, a vile, murderous dictator. Obviously, the president and Saddam are vastly different kinds of rulers. But just as obviously, a vast gulf separates President Bush's ruling philosophy from the governing philosophy of Washington and Madison.

George W. Bush is a man of overt Christian convictions. His personal dignity and self-restraint offer a blessed and welcome contrast to his predecessor's adolescent corruption. But his personal rectitude does little public good -- and can actually contribute to a great deal of harm -- when it's wedded to unaccountable power. As essayist Isabel Patterson warned decades ago, "Most of the harm in the world is done by good people" -- people persuaded of the purity of their intentions, and convinced that they can be trusted with power.

In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke cites the ancient maxim "the reigns of good princes have been always the most dangerous to the liberties of their people." The acts of benevolent rulers, he warned, become especially dangerous "when their successors, managing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent and make them the standard of their prerogative...."

We have made this point before, but it bears repeating: Conservative supporters of President Bush must remember that the powers he exercises represent precedents for future presidents.

Furthermore, while President Bush's private conduct seems to reflect his Christian beliefs, his political conduct reflects a belief in what has been called the "Civil Religion" -- that is, the public worship of the state as God. Leftist historian Arnold Toynbee describes that religion as "the fanatical worship of collective human power" -- every totalitarian state's official creed.

President Bush's most recent State of the Union Address contained a brief but telling homily inspired by that murderous religion, the "worship of collective human power." Outlining foreign and domestic agendas nearly utopian in their ambition, the president declared: "[T]here's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people."

This was a none-too-subtle allusion to the chorus of an old Christian hymn "Power in the Blood," which testifies: "There is power, power, wonder working power, in the blood of the Lamb...." In the president's formulation, the redemptive power of Jesus Christ -- whom Christians worship as God -- was replaced by the collective power of the American people, as regimented by the state and directed by the president.

How can this be construed as anything other than a grave and shocking blasphemy -- and a brazen assertion of essentially limitless political power?