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Buy the Book
The Arranged Teddy Roosevelt
A diligent and scholarly pastiche of TR’s voluminous historical reflections.
Theodore Roosevelt’s History of the United States:
His Own
Words,
Selected and Arranged by Daniel Ruddy
(Smithsonian
Books, 418 pages, $27.99)
This is a very diligent and scholarly pastiche of Theodore Roosevelt’s voluminous historical reflections, put together with such skill and evident grasp of the material that it often seems it could have been composed as a single volume by the author. As anyone even slightly familiar with TR would expect, the text tends to be epigrammatic, and is carried through dozens of two-to-six page sub-chapters on historic personalities and events by Roosevelt’s invective-laden, gloriously emphatic, and usually acerbic opinions about everyone.
The ranks of those he admires are thin, distinguished, and in a few, cases, surprising. He goes to ingenious lengths to find new heights from which to praise George Washington, though he acknowledges that he was “not a genius,” and was a capable, but not consummately brilliant military commander. Rather, Roosevelt’s praise of the first president’s integrity, courage, and judgment are expressed in even greater superlatives than is conventional. The author’s intellectual snobbery does not come into play on this subject, and Washington’s astute land acquisitions in the West, which made him one of America’s wealthier men, and were not at all improper but drew on knowledge acquired in his military capacities, are not mentioned, though such factors are sometimes a terrible bugbear with TR in judging others.
Roosevelt’s admiration for Abraham Lincoln is almost as great as his admiration for Washington and is based on the usual grounds for Lincoln’s generally recognized, irresistible, claims to greatness. Almost to his own surprise, TR admires Lincoln’s gradual loss of personal animus, so that after 1858 he almost never attacked an opponent personally. It is one of Lincoln’s many distinctions that he always seemed pained rather than angered by betrayals, reversals, and the failings of others, but it is slightly surprising that TR admires that.
Andrew Jackson comes out quite well as a capable general and a fierce president who crushed secessionism for 30 years by his rough treatment of the South Carolina nullifiers and his threat to hang his vice president (John C. Calhoun). Roosevelt also admired the revocation of the charter of the Bank of the United States, even though it led, first to deflation, and then to inflation and a horrible economic depression. He ignored Jackson’s championship of slavery and his severe mistreatment of the Indians (whom Roosevelt strenuously disdained).
Beyond, that, among the presidents, the unlikely fourth place finisher is Zachary Taylor, because of his support of the Clay-Webster compromisers. (He even defends Taylor for putting down mats on the floors of the White House so he could spit on them without having to look for cuspidors.) Even more surprising than Taylor is the next nominee to the Pantheon, Chester A. Arthur, whom TR considered “very good.” He is followed by Grover Cleveland, who gets good marks as an honest, pleasant man, though over-influenced by corporate interests. There is a gentlemanly nod to the Adamses and to U.S. Grant, as a general and auto-biographer. After that, Roosevelt lays about him with a broadax and makes a hecatomb of his other predecessors and two subsequent presidents.
HIS PREMIER VICTIM is Thomas Jefferson, whose “influence upon the United States as a whole was very distinctly evil.” The Declaration of Independence is not mentioned, and Jefferson is reviled as someone who did not really believe in the central government; who fathered nullification and therefore secessionism; was “the most incapable executive that ever filled the president’s chair”; was a coward opposite the provocations that led to the war of 1812; and was “the underhanded but malignantly bitter leader of the anti-national forces” against Washington. He does credit Jefferson with being a sincere democrat and for exploring the West, but his opinion of the third president is extreme, relentless, and not entirely rational.
His strictures are often hilarious, and his description of Jefferson and Madison trying to deal with Napoleon and Talleyrand is an example: “[T]hese two timid, well-meaning statesmen… now found themselves pitted against the greatest warrior and lawgiver and one of the greatest diplomats of modern times… whose sodden lack of conscience was but heightened by the contrast of their brilliant genius and force of character — two men who were unable to so much as appreciate that there was shame in the practice of venality, dishonesty, mendacity, cruelty, and treachery.” There is some truth to all that, but Jefferson, Madison and their minister in Paris and fellow Virginian and next president, James Monroe, did make the Louisiana Purchase at a very advantageous price. TR discounts this because America was bound to get it. In fact, Britain could have got it, and protected it, as it protected Canada.
Lesser presidents are attacked with almost more ferocity than their status justified. To call Tyler “mediocre, is unwarranted flattery. He is a man of monumental littleness.” Franklin Pierce, in the words of Thomas Hart Benton, whom TR admired, was a man of “undaunted mendacity, moral callosity, and mental obliquity,” who, said TR, “had the will but lacked the courage, to be a traitor.”
Benjamin Harrison, whom he served in the Civil Service Commission, was “a genial little runt, a cold-blooded narrow-minded, prejudiced, obstinate, timid, old, psalm-singing little, grey, Indianapolis toad.” William McKinley, to whom he owed his elevation to national office, “had the backbone of a chocolate éclair.” His comments on non-presidential politicians were equally declarative. Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall were great men; Henry Clay “excellent,” Benton was a favorite, Franklin was important but inconstant, John Jay diligent and pure, John Hay interesting but naive, Winfield Scott a good soldier but “flatulent,” and William Jennings Bryan “a professional yodeler, a human trombone,” and a Judas goat for radical revolution.
His opinions of people who weren’t American politicians were no less amusing. Rudyard Kipling was a “bright, nervous, voluble, underbred little fellow,” but “an entertaining genius.” Tolstoy was “a sexual degenerate… a diseased mind.” The founder of the British Labour Party, Kier Hardie, was “an un-hung traitor,” George Bernard Shaw “a blue-rumped ape,” and Winston Churchill “a dreadful cad” (an outrageous charge).
TR’s assault on Woodrow Wilson is the fiercest of all. He concedes Wilson’s intelligence: “Wilson is a wonderful dialectician, with a remarkable command of language.” But he used his talents entirely for “cowardly infamy…. His soul is rotten through and through.” Again, these comments are not rational. Roosevelt claimed that The Hague Convention required that the U.S. go to war over the German invasion of Belgium, (it didn’t); and that the sinking of the Lusitania required a U.S. declaration of war on Germany. (It didn’t — Germany abandoned unrestricted submarine warfare for two years.)
When Wilson did take the country to war, TR congratulated him in an address worthy of Lincoln and asked to take a regiment to war as he had in Cuba. This is not recounted in this book, but Wilson said Roosevelt had the irresistible charm of an adventurous boy, but didn’t want a 59-year-old former president in indifferent health (he dies the next year), going into the inferno of the Western Front. He cautioned TR that this wasn’t a Boys’ Own Annual “splendid little war” like Cuba.
That TR tired of Wilson’s humbug about being “too proud to fight” is understandable, but he should have appreciated that he led a united country into war, that he was a prophet as the first person to inspire the masses of the world with a vision of enduring peace; and that he was an extremely effective war president who mobilized and sent into battle in France huge forces with astonishing speed and decisive effect. Wilson was no Madison (of whom TR was even more contemptuous than he was of Jefferson, because of Madison’s unseemly flight from Washington before the British burned down the White House).
THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S ENERGY, brilliance, historical insights, high ethics, and strength of character are all vividly here. But there are problems. He wanted to go to war with Britain in 1895 over the border between Venezuela and British Guiana. “This country needs a war. I don’t care whether our sea coast cities are bombarded or not. We would take Canada.” This was a mad enterprise. The U.S. would not have won a war with the British Empire if it was fully engaged; Canada would have been defended, and the inhabitants of Atlantic coast cities might have become quite bored with being shelled by the insuperable Royal Navy. (Roosevelt felt Canadians were inferior, as mere colonists, even though Canada had been an independent country for 30 years by this time.) It was only three years later that Roosevelt moved to a profound Anglophilia that never deserted him thereafter, because Britain had given moral support to the U.S. in the Spanish-American War.
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Richard Baker| 6.17.10 @ 7:14AM
"You must always remember that the President is about six."--Cecil Spring-Rice, the British ambassador and a longtime friend of TR. For all his virtues, and there were many, TR had a raging animus towards his perceived enemies that is hard to understand. The only answer is that he liked Power and enjoyed using it. Not one of his virtues.
Alan Brooks| 6.17.10 @ 1:19PM
Incredible thing about him was his going from being a sickly asthmatic to a rugged life in the Dakota territory. Not all that common.
Alan Brooks| 6.17.10 @ 1:21PM
or is it athsmatic?
Sistah Soljah| 6.17.10 @ 8:01PM
Anybody seen a recent photo of Trigg? He's a cute little pooch.
Alan Brooks| 6.19.10 @ 1:39PM
Trig Palin?
He was at the veterinarian's last week.
Silvermare| 6.19.10 @ 10:03PM
Ah, this is about Theodore Roosevelt, not Trig Palin. Your pathetic attempt at humor is contemptible.
martin j smith| 6.17.10 @ 7:33AM
TR interestingly is a revered figure at the American Museum of Natural History. Some of his quotes are
scupted along the walls of the Rotunda named after him. Yet, the many Left and Liberal people who frequent the museum and others fail to comprehend the traditional values that TR held. Ir seems to me that what they do is to cherry pick only those aspects of his lefe ( conservationism ) that they most adhere to. Yet, even on the walls of the museum--for all to see--are values of individual courage,morals and strengths--that TR believed in. These they gloss over its seems.
martin j smith| 6.17.10 @ 7:33AM
TR interestingly is a revered figure at the American Museum of Natural History. Some of his quotes are
scupted along the walls of the Rotunda named after him. Yet, the many Left and Liberal people who frequent the museum and others fail to comprehend the traditional values that TR held. Ir seems to me that what they do is to cherry pick only those aspects of his lefe ( conservationism ) that they most adhere to. Yet, even on the walls of the museum--for all to see--are values of individual courage,morals and strengths--that TR believed in. These they gloss over its seems.
WilliamInWien| 6.17.10 @ 8:05AM
I suspect that I have read 5-6 books about TR and always find additional facts that continue to add to the complexity of this man and his presidency. What I find most distasteful is the practice of applyling contemporary "values" to judge TR. As an ardent admirer of TR, I also find much that I cannot agree with, yet that is the key, he had and held opinions/beliefs on most everything and voiced them. Compare that to the contemporary babble that most of our elected politicians spew and TR becomes even more refreshing. I will but the book!
Ryan| 6.17.10 @ 8:22AM
Teddy Roosevelt is starting to become sort of the "action hero" President in many minds due to internet memes and such - comparisons with Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, etc. are starting to abound.
He really was a bit of a man's President, rough-and-tumble, using the power of the Presidency to do what he felt needed to be done.
Keep in mind that the people that essentially put him in power thought he could be contained and controlled.
Richard Baker| 6.17.10 @ 8:42AM
Ryan:
Mark Hanna was terrified at his becoming Vice President and that was orchestrated to get him out of New York politics by the "Easy Boss" Senator Platt.
Bob K.| 6.17.10 @ 9:02AM
I believe that Teddy campaigned vigorously to be awarded with the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits in Cuba. See "The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt," Elting E Morison, ed.; (1951). Quote from p. 1094: "I am entitled to the Medal of Honor, and I want it."
He finally received it posthumously about 100 years after his charge up San Juan hill! The result of a long campaign by his family and admirers.
It helps to have connections, doesn't it!
http://www.archives.gov/public.....nor-1.html
Robert| 6.17.10 @ 10:21AM
Churchhill was known but was at best a backbencher and a minor player on the scene...and may have been a cad in 1915. And TR was often referred to as that damn cowboy in the White House.
Bob K.| 6.18.10 @ 1:18AM
At the time that TR was making a name for himself in Cuba, Churchill was completing his 2nd book: "The River War" about the British campaign in the Sudan against "The Mahdi" in which he served as a low ranking officer. It is a fascinating read!
He was younger than TR and intellectually much more curious. The book has a paragraph in it which is famous till this day for it's analysis of "Mohammedenism." It is remarkably prescient and appropriate to our time.
Vern Crisler| 6.17.10 @ 12:17PM
Wasn't TR the first American presidents to indulge in the leader principle?
Michael| 6.17.10 @ 1:39PM
In addition to getting the Medal of Honor he should have also been promoted to Brigader General, something more befitting a president.
JP| 6.17.10 @ 3:00PM
I think TR would have settled on nothing less than the title of Field Marshall.
Northern Rebel| 6.17.10 @ 3:40PM
It boggles the mind that he has any emnity for Woodrow Wilson, when their progressive philosophies, and disrespect for the constitution are nearly identical. I suspect competitive envy is in play here.
Teddy disdained property rights, and proved it by amassing millions of acres of government owned land, during his administration.
His hatred for capitalism rivals that of our current madministration. Read some of research turned up by Glenn Beck in his recent books, and what you see is a great warrior, who wanted to be king.
His face should be sandblasted off the mountain. He did America much more harm than good.
Old Soldier| 6.17.10 @ 4:46PM
It is good and right to despise Woodrow Wilson. He was the first Obama - a lawyerly academic with little real world experience and a naive unrealistic world view. Wilson was a liar – lying about WWI in the 1916 campaign and lying about his health during the final years of his administration. He was the first real class warfare President and supported the first progressive income tax. Wilson was also a virulent racist – segregating the Federal Civil Service in 1913 and keeping the Army segregated through WWI. Hard to imagine a more despicable President.
RCV| 6.17.10 @ 5:25PM
As an Obama supporter, I'll join in the unanimous disparagement of Woodrow Wilson: He was an unrepentent racist, a suppresser of free speech in the worst way since the Alien and Sedition Acts, and a man who promised various peoples self-government and then abandoned them at Versailles. He stayed in office though mentally and physically incapable of government. A disaster by every measure.
RCV| 6.17.10 @ 5:30PM
Teddy Roosevelt, in contrast, was a man of unsurpassed talent and energy, and one of our greatest Presidents. His forsight not only gave us our National Parks, but he reined in oligolopilistic trusts which were destroying competition and free enterprise, initiated much need health and safety laws that literally saved millions of lives, served as NY Police Commissioner and Secretary of the Navy, and really earned his Nobel Peace Prize by helping end the Russo-Japanese War. A great man by any standard. And read "River of Doubt" to get a real flavor of this amazing person.
JmsA| 6.17.10 @ 11:00PM
Well stated, RCV. Absent Teddy's anti-trust efforts, this country could have likely become one huge oligarchy. I can't wait until someone replies to this comment by accusing me of being a communist.
Old Soldier| 6.18.10 @ 7:31AM
I'm trying to imagine any Democrat over the past century advocating "rugged individualism." It is the antithesis of everything they stand for.
WilliamInWien| 6.17.10 @ 5:08PM
Dear NORTHERN REBEL: The millions of acres amassed by TR are now...National Parks, otherwise we would have condos dotting the Grand Canyon. TR disdained "big business" because it was quite powerful and unregulated in many respects back then. Now we disdain big business because they make a profit. Absolutely no question of "ego" involved, but looking at his life in context, what else could one expect. No sandblasting, please!
scotchieguy| 6.21.10 @ 3:01AM
Not sure exactly where I stand on the Fed. Parks issue. On the one hand, it is nice to have beautiful chunks of wilderness preserved for posterity...on the other hand, it is repulsive to have these damn elitists stomping all over the States in their do-gooderism. Perfect example--Utah. Clinton just plowed through that state in his final days as prez, and now Utah is what 75% Federally owned. With all the oil/mineral rights being usurped, one wonders at the real reason for the takeover.
Alan Brooks| 6.17.10 @ 9:13PM
Libertarians are rotweilers in human form, William-- they even hate Lincoln.
Alan Brooks| 6.19.10 @ 9:17AM
..oops, rottweilers; two 't's, not one.
Publius| 6.17.10 @ 10:32PM
Woodrow Wilson truly was a horrible president, besides his ridiculous infatuation with the League of Nations (the precursor of the UN and all the horrible international law structures like the ICC, universal jurisdiction and other things much loved by Obama, Eric Holder, and others), his arbitrary and ignorant behavior during the WW I Peace Conference allowed the creation of the punitive Versailles Treaty which ultimately led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. He also had a stroke/break-down and allowed his wife to serve as president during the last years of his administration.
As for Northern Rebel - grow up and stop reading Beck. He's not only a loose cannon, but a professional entertainer who makes money by promoting his conspiracies. Did TR embrace some progressive excesses? Certainly. But read about what was going on at the time - a Supreme Court that allowed 7 day work-weeks and child labor. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which workers were chained in their rooms so that they wouldn't leave their sewing machines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....ctory_fire or look at the conditions described by Upton Sinclair in the Jungle, and ask if you'd like to trust companies like Tyson Meat (which still practically owns Arkansas and helped put Bill Clinton into office) to provide you and your family with healthy meat absent government regulators. It was a time that single families controlled entire industries, e.g. Rockefeller, Astor, Carnegie, and had they all been allowed to continue their trusts and monopolies a prior writer is correct, the West would now be clear cut, there would be no national parks, and the Grand Canyon would look like Las Vegas. TR got a lot of things right, and he's a hell of a model for character, and ought to be a model for future presidents.
Alan Brooks| 6.19.10 @ 9:19AM
"his arbitrary and ignorant behavior during the WW I Peace Conference allowed the creation of the punitive Versailles Treaty which ultimately led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis."
Okay, but did the even worse treaty of Brest-Litovsk lead to the rise of Stalin?
scotchieguy| 6.21.10 @ 3:19AM
Somehow, I just knew TR would lead to Progressives, which would lead to Wilson and Glenn Beck. Funny how these "progressives" have evolved from abolishing harsh child-labor conditions to absolutely being in bed w/ the "let's retire at age 50" unions. My, how times have changed. I shall read this book on TR, and also the one about WW and the Progressives (Ron Pestritto).
I think Beck gets nailed for being a loose cannon, and a total goof-ball, I might add. There was one program in January 2010 where he had three historians on discussing "progressivism." It was excellent. WW was a strange and odd duck. He literally began the movement away from Federalism and into this contorted abyss of govt over regulation.
I also recall a Political Science professor discussing a book (I believe the author was named Barber) in the 70's back when I was a certified Liberal about the psychology of the presidency. All I can remember is Wilson was the product of a fierce over bearing father, LBJ was a momma's boy--imagine a big, fat spoiled Randy Quaid, and Nixon was also a product of strange parenting, and you can see he was a seriously troubled personality.
Anyway, there is always more info on these strange presidents..it is just so refreshing to see a new book enlighten the topic. Anything new on the guy who is currently sitting on the throne?
scotchieguy| 6.21.10 @ 3:24AM
Pub, I also agree w/ your take on tainted meat and the condos on the grand canyon. I don't totally dis the feds, they just seem way out of line in today's time. They really have outgrown their usefulness. This is evident by Katrina, the gulf oil spill, and their inept response to illegal immigration in the southwest. Did I mention the DEBT???
Dick Simmons| 6.17.10 @ 11:41PM
My favorite TR story is recounted in Edmund Morris' second volume of his biography: "Theodore Rex" . Seems TR in his first term appointed as Postmaster of a small southern town a well-known African-American retiree and Republican. Riots broke out, the post office damaged and the governor and legislature of the state in question (Democrat, of course) accused Roosevelt with the usual racial claptrap. After briefly considering using force to keep the office open with the appointee, he reluctantly yielded to political advice that he needed the South to advance his overall national goals. He did however exact some revenge and a small measure of justice by closing the post office alltogether, thereby making the recalcitrant populace go a further 10 miles out of their way to get their mail!
Northern Rebel| 6.18.10 @ 10:24AM
Sorry William,
Teddy is the same kind of piece of shit that I fight everyday of my life!
The existence of those like him endangers my freedom, and I happen to enjoy my freedom.
Nice try.
Northern Rebel| 6.18.10 @ 10:27AM
jmsa:
No you are only a progressive, which is just as bad.
Northern Rebel| 6.18.10 @ 10:28AM
I doubt if you are intelligent enough to pull off communism.
JmsA| 6.19.10 @ 9:36PM
"No you are only a progressive, which is just as bad."
"I doubt if you are intelligent enough to pull off communism."
Northern Rebel.
First, I like to thank you for your response. That said, had you read any of my previous postings, particularly in response to those posted by Purpleguy, and others of his ilk, you'd realize not only how far from either a progressive or a communist I am, but also how misguided your comments are. As to my not being intelligent enough to pull off communism, I have forgotten
(regretfully not enough), more about communism that you'll ever know about it. As such, I know for a fact, that Teddy Roosevelt was not a communist, nor even comparable to the current bunch governing, or misgoverning this country.
For you communism is probably not more than an abstraction, but for me and many others, it is a terrible personal tragedy. Let me explain, if I may, just so you know how foolish your reference to me truly are. I was born and lived for ten years in one of the few remaining socialist = communist tyrannies in the world. My parents, through their courage and sacrifice made it possible for me to escape that nightmare on earth, so I could reach this great land, where I was welcomed with open arms and allowed to live in freedom and thrive. Indebted thus, not only to them, but to this great land, its history, freedom, and people, I figured the best way to pay back this great kindness, was for me to defend its interests and freedom. As such, I set out with much youthful vigor if not also quite a lack of commonsense, to fight against against communism, yes, communism, in this very hemisphere. In the process, though I'm loathe to toot my own horn, for those like only managed to partially accomplish our goals, I not only risked life and limb countless times, but also lost many a great friend. Can you actually say the same about yourself?
In summation, Theodore Roosevelt may not have been a great president in your eyes, but he did quite a few good things, not the least of which was to create our great National Parks, to be enjoyed by all as God intended it to be, but also the Panama Canal, a great boon to international commerce, and thus humanity, as well as further the interests of this country, including making the free enterprise system fairer, and last but not least, lead the charge up San Juan Hill--helping thus destroy the last vestiges of a dying, despotic empire. And believe me, I know about San Juan Hill, and many other points thereabouts, if you catch my drift. Thefore, if you're comparing TR to the current crew in the White House, you're either off your meds, or are simply in need of a brain transplant. All the best. JMSA
JmsA| 6.20.10 @ 2:08AM
Northern Rebel,
Do you also believe William Howard Taft was a progressive? His administration initiated eighty antitrust suits; that's forty more than TR. How about Senator John C. Sherman from Ohio, the principal author of the Sherman Act, initially used against trade unions, which not only passed by the Senate in 1890 by a vote of 51-1, and unanimously passed by the House of Representatives, 242-0, in June 1890, before being signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison. By your all encompassing metric based on your beliefs regarding TR, I guess all in elected office, including congress and the executive branch, were all progressives. By the way, the Sherman Act was strengthened by congress in 1914 with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the formation of the Federal Trade Commission. As to the latter, brought about Woodrow Wilson and others, I will not strike a single key in their defense.
Also of interest, when initially introduced, the Sherman Act raised serious objections (by the same Congress which ultimately near unanimously passed it into law) relative to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, one of the first national laws designed to control private business behavior. Its legitimacy thus questioned, concerns were subsequently allayed by three arguments: 1. The law was needed as states were unable to fight trusts that operated outside their borders. 2. It was constitutional, as antitrust activity was a legitimate exercise of Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. 3) Its defenders contended that it did not threaten state sovereignty, as instead of preempting state antitrust activity, it merely supplemented it.
While I admit that my original comment that absent the antitrust efforts by TR this country might have become a giant oligarchy, might have have been a bit of stretch, I was solely referring to the potentially long term harm of unfettered monopolies and competition-restricting business practices may have had in the economic development and growth of the country based on the most commonly accepted historical references of such times. That hardly makes me a progressive or a wannabe communist, as you inferred. Besides, neither you nor I were there, so we truly don't know what the true circumstances were that led TR to promulgate such policies. That said, I did not mean, nor did I conflate said antitrust efforts by TR with his subsequent more radicalized views, which along with him were ultimately properly shunned by the Republican party.
It should be further noted that in 1920, the U.S. Supreme Court relaxed antitrust regulations so that only "unreasonable" restraint of trade through acquisitions, mergers, and predatory pricing constituted a violation; while subsequent cases reinforcing the prohibition against monopoly control, including the 1984 break-up of AT&T, led to greater competition.
My positive outlook regarding TR stems also from his efforts to advance American global interests, beginning, to the dismay of many Latin Americans, what can be best described as the consolidation of American Hegemony, beginning with Manifest Destiny, the defeat and expulsion of Spain from its last colonial possessions in the Caribbean basin, and ultimately through his giving the American people a new understanding of their country's growing role in world affairs. Ever heard of the Great White Fleet? That is, his enunciating a policy that would come to be known as the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, wherein he declared, "we cannot afford to let Europe get a foothold in our backyard, so we'll have to act as policemen for the West." Besides, I cannot for the life of me confuse "Speak softly and carry a big stick" with the present occupant's of the White House, "Smart Diplomacy" or "Smar Power" nonsense. I tend to focus on the historically positive, particularly when it comes to the U.S. and its statesmen. That's my prerogative, but it doesn't make me a progressive or a communist. Besides, I suspect you might be projecting or conflating some of FDR's progressivism onto TR. And by the way, I will be eternally grateful to TR for all those lands he set aside as National Parks, such as Yosemite, which are just lovely for everyone to enjoy, as is my favorite Big Sur, here in the Great State of California, where I have resided for many a year (and only voted for Republicans, by the way), and where at least some Redwoods remain standing. Got it?
JmsA| 6.23.10 @ 10:48AM
Wow, Northern Rebel, you couldn't come with those two amazingly profound thoughts in one posting? You're a deep thinker, indeed! Seems to me that you should question your own intelligence, or lack thereof, before you question mine.
Publius| 6.18.10 @ 9:03PM
Northern Rebel - you fight POS'es every day? What exactly is it that you do for a living?
You're entitled to your opinion, but Teddy Roosevelt was one of the greatest US Presidents, and I know if he were around if he didn't challenge you to a duel for a gratuitous insult, he'd at least blacken your eye.
But if nothing else, maybe we can agree that having a historical argument over whether he was or wasn't a good president is irrelevant given this crew currently in the White House.
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