Who says President Bush doesn't believe in shared sacrifice? Following the 9/11 attacks, the president galvanized a nation hungry for leadership by urging us all to -- uh, go shopping?

The premise being, one supposes, that if we didn't prop up the economy by conspicuous consumption and go about our daily lives as if nothing had happened, well, then the terrorists would have won.

Sorry, Mr. President, but something had happened and the required citizen response should've been more than a shopping trip.

Now, after more than 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and countless thousands more injured mentally and physically, the president has spoken of yet another great sacrifice. This time, he's leading the way.

To show that he is, figuratively at least, on the battle-lines with our servicemen and women fighting the war he started under dubious pretenses, Bush recently confirmed that he has given up golf.

Go ahead, read that again: I'll wait.

In an interview with politico.com, the president actually said, "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Say what?

While we're on the issue of sacrificing recreation time, Bush apparently feels that the sight of him mountain-biking or doing a goofy hand-dance in Africa is not as distressing as it would be to see him playing golf.

Some cynics point out that Bush actually golfed two months after the supposed impetus for giving up the game -- the terrorist bombing in Iraq on Aug. 19, 2003, that killed U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and more than a dozen others. Others contend that Bush quit playing primarily because of knee surgery.

REGARDLESS OF WHY OUR FEARLESS LEADER SHEATHED HIS PRESIDENTIAL PUTTER, I figure that if Bush can give up golf as a show of solidarity with grieving families, we should all be willing to make similar sacrifices. Since I don't have the power to call our servicemen and women home, my sacrifice is -- get ready -- giving up dating supermodels.

No, don't try to talk me out of it.

Until every U.S. soldier is out of Iraq, you will no longer see me squiring Naomi, Heidi and the other lissome models at red carpet events while the paparazzi ask, "Who's that?"

It's the least I can do.

OK, if you're going to get technical about it, I have never actually squired a supermodel anywhere. Not even in my dreams. Sadly, not even my dreams are that ambitious. The one time I dated a model -- she'd appeared in a newspaper ad for E-Z-Bake Oven decades earlier when she was 5 -- the relationship ended with restraining orders all around.

In truth, it is an insult that the president would align his giving up golf with the sacrifices of the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands with loved ones in Iraq and whose hearts must no doubt skip each time the doorbell rings.

I have friends in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, and every night I watch the news holding my breath until the names of the dead have been read. Believe me, Mr. Bush, the nation, no, the world, would probably breathe easier knowing that you're rattling your six-iron at some exclusive country club rather than rattling your saber at Iran.

What Bush does on the golf course or in his spare time concerns me not one whit.

It's what he does while on the job that has the nation crying, "FORE!"