Posted on 10/03/2008 10:54:20 AM PDT by T.L.Sink
Who Am I?
I am under 45 years old. I love the outdoors, I hunt, I am a Republican reformer, I have taken on the Republican establishment, I have a spot on the national ticket with less than two years in the governor's office.
Did you guess?
I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.
But these things stated are where ANY resemblance between Roosevelt and Palin end. Teddy was a “progressive”, no different from Woodrow Wilson or FDR. He was an imperialist and believed the government needed to be big. The Constitution was an inconvenience for a man who wanted to be an emperor. He was the one who started the nasty habit of government “takings”.
Sorry....I just don’t much like the man.
This has been posted lots of times.
Both had lots of kids.
I’m not a big TR fan. He was a great American personality, but he was part of the Fascist Progressive movement, and really assaulted the Constitution.
In 1912, TR betrayed the Republicans by splitting the party, thus allowing the election of Democrat Wilson. He is not a good model for a true Republican. Wonder why he is McCain’s model.
TR, my fellow Long Islander, will always be one of my faves for constructing an "aggressive realist" foreign policy that contrasted starkly with the Wilsonian/FDR idealist Democratic messianism so beloved by the NeoConservatives.
The argument you guys make is a respectable one and has most recently been made by Jonah Goldberg in his terrific book “Liberal Fascism.” However, other historians disagree with that view. Taft was the only man who served as President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His heart was always in the law and he never really cared much about the presidency and politics. In fact, he tried to reverse many of TR’s reforms and was a status quo establishment Republican, which is why TR ran against him in 1912. By the way, I think Sarah would love the BULL MOOSE party!
Goldberg’s book was, indeed, quite good. And I consider Taft under-rated as a president- his disinterest in party politics is perhaps why he did a pretty good job. But the facts about Roosevelt have been known long before Jonah wrote his book.
Roosevelt took no notice of enumerated rights when he snatched the land of a sovereign state to make a “national park”. I’m quite sure he loved the great outdoors, but what he did with the power of the fed in this case was wrong and opened a HUGE can of worms that we feel today as the fed grabs land, without due process or fair payment.
There is no argument about whether Teddy was an imperialist. Actually, he is the only president we had who truly was. This was a sickly little boy in a man’s body who spent his whole life trying to be something else in his OWN mind. And along with that, he was the spoiled and pampered scion of a wealthy family and had no concept of the lives of his “subjects”.
We have some kind of “romantic” idea of this man, thanks to some early cartoonists especially, but they do not address the actual man behind that romance.
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