Noon on Theodore Roosevelt

Dave sums up Theodore Roosevelt in one paragraph.

Now, it's not surprising that certain varieties of conservative would have man-crushes on Teddy Roosevelt. After all, he was a belligerent executive authoritarian whose dime-novel masculinity consisted mostly of shooting animals and complaining that he was surrounded by lady boys who lacked the will to get things done; he spent most of his presidency threatening other nations with war, yet he never had the prunes to initiate actual hostilities against anyone who might actually muster a defense; he detested Congress, and no more so when its members made any noises whatsoever about overseeing his foreign policy; he was a belated convert to the cause of women's rights, a shift that came at the tail end of a life devoted to the proposition that women were little more than pods for the species; and he believed the evolution of white civilization required constant struggle against the barbarian hordes who lived beyond the borders and who -- via loose immigration laws -- threatened to spoil the nation from within.

Yep--that just about sums it up. Theodore Roosevelt was an awful man who is popular today because he tapped into some of the worst impulses of America that remain powerful. Now, he was right on a few issues and he had a weird sense of fairness that allowed him to do crazy things like not actually call in the U.S. Army to break strikes. But far more often, he evoked a dangerous race-based masculinity that led to the worst the United States has to offer. Even the things people laud him for, like creating the national parks and other conservation laws, came out of deeply racist beliefs. A disturbing figure, to say the least.