It goes without saying

President Bush yesterday sketched the sketchy outlines of an agenda for a second term. Richard W. Stevenson of The New York Times reports that the president also said his agenda:

… would derive from some basic convictions. "Government should never try to control or dominate the lives of our citizens,'' he said.

Well, yes. Quite. I suppose in a sense it's reassuring that George W. Bush is not campaigning on an explicit pledge to "control and dominate" the lives of the public.

But in another sense, this is rather less than reassuring.

First off there's his odd choice of the possessive "our" to describe the citizens of America. (Is that a royal third person?)

Bush is campaigning for the office of president, not for the throne of a king or the palace of the tsar. The idea that a president "should never try to control or dominate the lives of [the] citizens" ought to go without saying.

And that's what's really worrisome here. Bush seems to feel the need to say things that ought to go without saying.

Imagine a man at the office offering to escort a female coworker to her car in the dark, isolated parking lot. "Don't worry," he says. "I'm a gentleman."

That much might be reassuring. But if he elaborates and goes on to say what ought to go without saying, it becomes decidedly less reassuring.

"And a gentleman would never even think of waiting until your back was turned, knocking you unconscious, wrapping you in duct tape and then carrying you away in the spacious, plastic-lined trunk of his car to keep you prisoner in the sound-proofed cellar of his isolated cabin in the woods. That's not the sort of thing a gentleman would do. And I'm a gentleman. So don't you worry."

I wouldn't let that guy walk me to the parking lot if I were her. Just as I'm not inclined to vote for a politician who feels the need to reassure me that he won't become a totalitarian despot.