This column isn’t only an effort to get Matthew Yglesias to stop seeing Theodore Roosevelt through the lens of John McCain.
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14 comments
July 17, 2008 at 4:20 pm
bitchphd
Beautiful piece; I wrote you a link that’ll go up tomorrow morning.
July 17, 2008 at 4:29 pm
bitchphd
Oops, I lied; I linked the other TNR piece from, uh, last year. Oh well. No one ever said I was competent.
July 17, 2008 at 4:47 pm
eric
Oh, well, uh, thought that counts, right? (Thanks!)
July 17, 2008 at 5:48 pm
SomeCallMeTim
My sense of TR is derived almost entirely from the first Edmund Morris book. For some reason, I think that McCain’s Roosevelt springs from the same place.
July 17, 2008 at 5:49 pm
eric
If McCain really knew anything about TR he’d know that you don’t call him “Teddy.”
July 17, 2008 at 6:08 pm
SomeCallMeTim
It’s a bit astonishing to me how important lay history books can be. I used to get the sense that significant parts of the conservative movement got their justification from Paul Johnson’s Modern Times, a book I myself liked quite a bit (and like significantly less now). Similarly, I have a somewhat positive view of Huey Long because of T. Harry Williams’s Huey Long. That comfort with Long probably made me a bit more comfortable with corruption than I should have been (the Bush Administration has largely cured me of that).
July 17, 2008 at 9:18 pm
foolishmortal
I’ve thought this before, but I’m not sure that I’ve written it: TR’s presidency was a miracle of rhetoric. I say, “rhetoric”, because that was all he had, and, “miracle”, because it was all he needed. He talked a great game, good enough that he didn’t have to do anything about it (Northern Securities was a joke). But, in doing so, he coopted the Hanna wing of the party and prepped the political field for wilson to actually act, and presto: income tax, fed, etc… Well, maybe not that simple, but still…
July 17, 2008 at 9:52 pm
eric
Kind of noted here.
July 18, 2008 at 6:39 am
Fats Durston
When I think TR, I think “speak softly and carry a big elephant gun. Forward Operating Bases ain’t what they used to be.
Also, the perfect metaphor for imperialism made literal. Note also the Sunni-Shia-gate of 1909. (Zulus?!)
“The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary widely.
Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads; some till the soil
and live in thatched huts shaped like beehives; some are
fisherfolk; some are ape-like naked savages, who dwell in
the woods and prey on creatures not much wilder or lower
than themselves.”
-Teddy
Ah yes, from war-like to animal-like.
July 18, 2008 at 6:53 am
eric
Fats, the contention is that TR was a more intelligent practitioner of foreign policy than McCain would be, or than many of us remember him as being—not that he was enlightened in every respect.
July 18, 2008 at 7:56 am
Fats Durston
That wasn’t in response to your article, which learned me good about nuances on the U.S. end–just what my Africanist mind jumps to when I hear about Ted. (There’s also Mark Twain: anti-imperialist, e.g.)
July 19, 2008 at 4:22 pm
cameronblevins
I think your column is a shining example of the space for historians within contemporary political commentary. It’s painful to hear political commentators make sweeping historical comparisons to modern figures or events. It’s a cop-out to notice a few similarities between elements of the present and the past, and immediately smother them with blanket conclusions. Instead, historical contextualization should be exactly what you accomplished – focused, concise, and specific analysis. Great job.
July 20, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Scattered Links - 7/20/2008 « history-ing
[...] Eric Rauchway wrote a great article for The New Republic explaining why parallels between John McCain and Teddy Roosevelt fall flat. [...]
July 25, 2008 at 9:06 am
Oh, for heaven’s sake. « The Edge of the American West
[...] were not conservative. Dylan was not conservative. By the standards of the modern Republican Party, Theodore Roosevelt was not conservative. Why would partisans of a movement claim as antecedents and allies [...]