Rove, Bush, and Teddy Roosevelt

Posted by BooMan | Jun 26, 2006 | 10 |

I think Karl Rove may have suffered a stroke or something. He has inexplicably written a paean to Teddy Roosevelt in Time Magazine. Although he never does so explicitly, the clear inference is that we should think of Teddy Roosevelt when we think of George W. Bush. Colonel Roosevelt commanded the “all-volunteer First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the “Rough Riders”, during the Spanish-American War.” During Vietnam, George W. Bush hid at Harvard Business School instead of fulfilling his air guard duties.

Teddy Roosevelt “was a widely-respected historian, naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books, listed online, include works on outdoor life, natural history, U.S. Western and political history, an autobiography and a host of other topics.” George W. Bush never travelled widely and had Karen Hughes write his book A Charge to Keep.

Teddy Roosevelt “was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906 for his successful mediation of the Russo-Japanese War.” According to Reuters George W. Bush was warned launching a war in Iraq could subject him to prosecution for war crimes.

“Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked [Teddy Roosevelt] from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.” George W. Bush consistently ranks as among the worst Presidents ever and “In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.”

Teddy Roosevelt took on the powerful railroad industry, broke up trusts, created the food and drug inspection act, and the meat inspection act. He “set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.” George W. Bush has never challenged a powerful industry, and he has consistently moved to reduce enivonmental and other safety regulations.

Teddy Roosevelt founded the Progressive Party. Bush considers progressives to be the coddlers of terrorists.

“While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, [Teddy Roosevelt] was shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank in a failed assassination attempt on October 14, 1912. With the bullet lodged in his chest, Roosevelt delivered his scheduled speech.” On 9/11, George W. Bush, informed that our country was under attack, went ahead with his scheduled appearance with a group of second graders.

Lastly, Karl Rove has always modeled himself after William McKinley’s unscrupulous political advisor, Mark Hanna. When Roosevelt took over for McKinley, “Mark Hanna was the rival power in the Republican party.” It was only “[when] Hanna died [that] Roosevelt had an easy renomination and reelection in 1904.”

I have no idea what Karl Rove was thinking. But, when we think of Teddy Roosevelt, George W. Bush is about the last person that comes up for a fair comparison.

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

10 Comments

Compound F on June 26, 2006 at 5:16 pm

It’s almost like watching big time wrestling, at least with respect to the comical tag team of Time and Rove getting their heads repeatedly bashed into the turnbuckles.
BooMan on June 26, 2006 at 5:29 pm

available in blue.
Shalimar on June 26, 2006 at 6:39 pm

I think the image they created for Bush is modeled just as much on Teddy Roosevelt as John McCain. Of course, as you point out, the image of Bush is the opposite of the reality of Bush in almost every respect.

It’s pathetic that so many people lack the critical thinking skills to see through such a painfully obvious illusion. Bush’s millions of supporters will lap up Rove’s Time article.
Savage on June 26, 2006 at 6:48 pm

During Vietnam, George W. Bush hid at Harvard Business School instead of fulfilling his air guard duties.

History has shown that during Bush’s time in TANG, not one single Viet Cong crossed the Rio Grande. Time to give the man some props.
Luam on June 26, 2006 at 6:53 pm

They keep reaching back for historical examples and we really need to give them as much shit as possible for that. Bush == McKinley is a much better fit. Lack of leadership, run by a corrupt operator (whom Rove admires), and also one of the worst presidents.

Even worse is the shit like Coulter talking about how we shouldn’t ask for a plan because FDR didn’t have one in WWII, total bullshit. Back then we had a clear plan which explains how it should be. Liberate the occupied nations restore their sovereign governments and get our troops back home.

At then end of the war, we did need to occupy, but we had a plan there as well. The Marshall plan. Work together with our allies in restoring the nations ravaged by war, and providing the stability for the defeated aggressors to resume their place in the international community.
- Omir the Storyteller on June 26, 2006 at 7:44 pm
  
  If they want history, let’s give it to them in spades. Let’s talk about how the Founding Fathers would have blanched if they knew just how this misadministration has twisted their words and intentions in its favor. Let’s talk about all the quotes from icons on both sides of the spectrum promoting liberty and denouncing fascism and the suppression of thought and speech.
  
  There is historical precedent for this misadministration, but not the kind they want to be associated with.
Arcturus on June 26, 2006 at 7:12 pm

At least give Rove credit for getting it partly right, not that he’d want it acknowledged. Both Presidents launched imperial wars of aggression under cover of naked lies trumpeted by a complicit media (Hearst). Both also share the honor of being the Commander in Chief of American troops who massacred the indigenous population they claimed to protect, as Glen Ford and Peter Gamble vividly point out:

Roosevelt became a “hero” in the Spanish-American War of 1898, a pushover conflict in which a decrepit Spain was ejected from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The U.S. was now a full-fledged imperial power with tens of millions of “natives” under its boot – and proud of it. American Manifest Destiny had gone truly global, as white as ever.

But the Filipinos, who had surrounded and almost run out the Spanish before the Americans arrived, insisted on claiming their independence. The U.S. embarked on a scorched earth and bodies strategy – as usual.

The American soldiers were confused, however. What would they call these people who lived in the thousand-island archipelago “free-fire” zone? With the Native American wars (massacres) still fresh in their minds, and the lynching of thousands of American Blacks the favorite pastime for many back home, U.S. soldiers wrote to family and friends of the fun they were having killing the “niggers” and “injuns” of the Philippines.

“Gooks,” “chinks,” and “hajis” would come later, once the Americans got their feet wet in the blood of the world.

Mark Twain, an anti-war activist, wrote of how 30,000 U.S. troops caused the deaths of a half-million Filipinos. One episode of many in the imperial butchery occurred in 1906 when a whole village sought refuge from the invaders in a dormant volcanic crater on the southern island of Jolo. Sixteen-hundred were massacred by American artillery, rifles and machine guns. U.S. officials reported:

“This action was absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people of Jolo. The position was first shelled by a naval gunboat and then assaulted by the troops and constabulary. The Moro women fought alongside the men and held their children before them, having sworn to die rather than yield. In this way a number of women and children were among the killed – an unfortunate but necessary evil.”

The same script we hear today had been written, even then, just as the U.S. was stepping fully onto the global stage. We will not list the atrocities that U.S. soldiers have committed against (almost always) non-white peoples in the 100 years since the Jolo Crater Massacre, the Philippines. They are legion, as were the massacres that occurred in the previous centuries of the evolution of American Manifest Destiny.

The Spanish-American War hinges the 19th C to the 20th. As John Wesley Powell wrote, in a candid comment rare for a gov’t official, in his 1873 report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, His methods of warfare are such that we cannot cope with him without resorting to means which are repugnant to civilized people . . .” — which means successive administrations & army officials have done their best to downplay, deny & consign to silence ever since.

Roosevelt’s positive legacy resides for me largely in his conservation record.
mrboma on June 26, 2006 at 7:21 pm

I have written about Teddy Roosevelt and Bush before, too.

What would Teddy Roosevelt say about the GOP being in bed with Enron, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, WorldCom, Wal-Mart, corporate welfare, Tort reform, and deregulation?

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
“We demand that big business give the people a square deal.”
“It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.”
“I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.”
“It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form … they shall do so under absolutely truthful representations … Great corporations exist only because they were created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”
“The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth.”
“The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital which have marked the development of our industrial system, create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the state and the nation toward property… More and more it is evident that the State and if necessary the nation, has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the great corporations which are its creatures.”
“The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.”

–

And what about the influence of those same corporations and other special interests on both parties today?

“If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary.”
“Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly.”
“One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States.”
“The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.”
“We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty.'”
“There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done … Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.”
“There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.”
“Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.”

–

The flip side of the corporate issue is how the parties treat labor. What would Teddy think about the GOP’s anti-labor bent?

“If I were an employee, a working man … or a wage-earner of any sort, I undoubtedly would join a union of my trade… I believe in the union and I believe that all men are morally bound to help to the extent of their powers in the common interests advanced by the union.”
“It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”
“No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them. We need comprehensive workmen’s compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in booklearning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for our workers in industry and commerce, both within and between the States.”

–

What would Teddy, the father of the national parks system, say about Bush’s record on the environment, his excuse that the economy requires fewer environmental protections, and his desire to drill, drill, drill?

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it’s usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very properity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”
“In your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted.”
“There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country.”
“Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers”
“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”
“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”
“The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
“The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.”

–

Teddy lived before the new deals and often spoke of the value of hard work, but he also understood that the playing field is not level. How would Teddy react to the GOP desire to cut all social services?

“Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense… We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.”
“The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.”
“This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.”
“There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.”
“Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made.”
“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.”

–

What would Teddy, who lived in the era of the muckrakers, say about our timid MSM and the right-wing noise machine?

“There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.”
“At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal.”
“Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.”

–

What would Teddy say about Bush’s tax cuts for the overclass, including the elimination of the inheritance tax?

“As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual – a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits.”
“In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.”
“The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”
“The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.”

–

How would Teddy react to the Rove-Plame scandal and the GOP’s defense of Rove?

“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it.””Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.”
“It is the duty of all citizens, irrespective of party, to denounce, and, so far as may be, to punish crimes against the public on the part of politicians or officials.”
“No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.”

–

What would Teddy say about Black box voting?

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

–

What would Teddy say about the anti-immigrant movement?

Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, or character; it is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of descent.

–

How would Teddy react to John Bolton and the PNAC agenda?

“Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights.

–

How would Teddy react to the shameful way BushCo is cutting veterans benefits?

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

–

We all know that Teddy Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick”, but what would Teddy say about the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes?

Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting.

Omir the Storyteller on June 26, 2006 at 7:59 pm

He hated that nickname and preferred to go by “T.R.”

Impressive collection of quotes. The trust-busting, conservationist Roosevelt would have torn pro-business, anti-environment Bush to shreds.
Cedwyn on June 27, 2006 at 11:08 am

teddy was the shit.

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

“Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star”, 149
May 7, 1918

he’d slap that stupid smirk right the !@#$%& off shrubya’s face. how dare rove insult the fitzgerald clan like this. he should issue an apology immediately.

Rove, Bush, and Teddy Roosevelt

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