Former President Clinton, who seems unable to refrain from jawdroppingly narcissistic statements that invariably make headlines, offered some executive wist to a doting audience:

Clinton said the amendment, passed after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a record fourth term, should be changed simply to keep a person from being elected to more than two consecutive terms as president.

"I think since people are living much longer ... the 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime," Clinton said.

The former president said such a change probably wouldn't apply to him but would benefit future generations.

Far be it for Clinton to realize this, but the 22nd Amendment was set in place to thwart a president's aspirations to seat himself permanently in power. For those who argue that the will of voters trumps any indefinite habitation of office, consider the immensely popular and well-trusted George Washington. With two successful terms behind him, he gracefully bowed out and drew himself away from politics for retirement, thereby setting a two-term tradition in place. Though peace was obviously a great motivation in Washington's decision, his own countenance suggests a visceral understanding of self-government: it is a service and a tour, not an occupation or birthright.

The unwritten rule remained a part of the nation's conscience, as did its implications. In 1874, whispers that two-term executive Ulysses S. Grant would seek a third term in 1876 were met with cacophonous objection and a rhetorical barrage from Democrats, who accused the president and the Republican Party of "Caesarism," imperialism, absolutism and every other attribute fitting of a tyrant.

Democrat accusations were hysterical enough to make for easy satire by l'auteur terrible du jour Thomas Nast, who characterized the affair in Harper's Weekly as distended histrionics from a party looking to cast blame for their minority status. Incidentally, the Democrat-leaning newspaper to have begun the "Caesarism" mantra, the New York Herald, had recently fabricated a story about exotic beasts breaking out of the Central Park Zoo (no word on if the author's last name was "Blair"); and Nast's cartoon, depicting the Republican vote as an elephant hopelessly unsettled by the donkey's klaxon, successfully identified the party with the animal, leading to its place as today's symbol.

At any rate, Grant's aspiration - whether material or not - was defeated.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first and, to date, last president to disregard tradition and history by seeking a third and fourth term in office. In no uncertain terms was he popular; those at philosophical odds with his socialistic domestic work would nevertheless be hard-pressed to dismiss not only his leadership during the Second World War but his telling insight into democracy and its custody of human events - particularly his "Quarantine" speech in 1937. But claims that his presence during the war was invaluable and therefore acceptably sempiternal are hollow. The most difficult and momentous decisions of the war and aftermath - introducing the atomic bomb, democratizing the defeated Axis and girding the nation against the Soviets, fell to Harry S. Truman upon Roosevelt's death. Truman, thrust into the most powerful seat in mankind to the point where he felt "As though the sun and the moon and the stars had fallen on my shoulders," performed exemplarily.

And through the decades since, multiple administrations victorious through enormous challenges, it is quite apparent that the consistency of presidential leadership has less to do with individual men than the wisdom of the American people to elect one who is worthy of the office. Which makes Clinton's claim to the contrary, with its smarmily transparent hypothesis, all the more discomfiting:

"There may come a time when we elect a president at age 45 or 50, and then 20 years later the country comes up against the same kind of problems the president faced before," he said. "People would like to bring that man or woman back but they would have no way to do so."

No, Mr. President, people will choose a leader who may be unacquainted with the office or with only one term, though no less valuable. Reagan would have been more experienced for the necessary steps following the days of September 11th, but it is precisely the fresh perspective of Bush - a vision of extending democracy, a disconnection from the Cold War, only a perfunctory history of unbecoming alliance with strategically valuable dictators - uniquely qualified him for the task. Habits formed in eight years of the most difficult work will run in deep grooves and when alternatives are no longer considered, lives will be at risk. Familiarity, in this case of power, breeds danger and corruption. No one, not even George W. Bush, deserves an abidication of the sensibility of discretion.

Clinton, who left office in 2001, said he had "loved" his time as president but was also enjoying life outside the White House.

Enjoy your non-presidential status, Mr. Clinton. Even if Congress could possibly muster two-thirds majorities to pass such a coveting of power, the states - far more red than they are blue - would not capitulate. And the American people, wary of the petty would never elect you again.