Play Ball!

But not the President, because he doesn't want his feelings hurt.

For the second straight year, reports the Washington Post, President Bush has turned down an invitation to participate in a Washington baseball tradition started by President William Howard Taft in 1910.

Mr. Bush was there in 2005, to help celebrate the return of the nation's pastime to the nation's capital after a 33-year absence, but last year he left the first-pitch duties to Vice President Cheney. This year, neither man will be there.

The Post says that except for during World Wars I and II, only two other presidents have missed two opening days in a row – Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon.

So why can't Mr. Bush, an ardent baseball fan and former part owner of the Texas Rangers, make it out to the ballpark this year? A White House spokeswoman says Mr. Bush will be in Washington today, but "it's not possible with his schedule. … It just wasn't going to work out."

With the president's approval ratings stuck below 40 percent, was Mr. Bush concerned that he might get booed? "No," the spokeswoman said. "Certainly not."

More like "just above 30% than under 40%, but the implication is clear: The President doesn't want to hear the rabble, so he'll throw out the first pitch in the White House bowling alley with Rove and Hughes and Rice cheering him on. And Bush is such a small man, that not being able to throw out the first pitch must be killing him. He was a baseball owner. This is what he lives to do, these crappy photo-ops. He'd rather throw a baseball than face the soldiers at Walter Reed, a photo-op he ended up cutting short.

He wants to play dress-up and look like a hero. But this emperor has no clothes, so he can't. That's gotta hurt.