Marsupialized wrote:

lemur68 wrote:You just don't see the pince-nez glasses anymore.

Perhaps that can be the next hipster thing.

he had all kinds of looks the hipsters can start aping

He could eat ten of those white belts for breakfast.

Theodore Roosevelt was a fascinating president and person.

Many people in his own party hated his fucking guts, like Mark Hanna.

Embarrassed to say I don't know a great deal about his foreign policy, but he basically established the federal interest in land preservation for its own sake. Given the absence of free right of passage across private property in the rural U.S., I'm very happy this happened. Teddy gets a NC.

A conservative who happened to be the first president to call for universal healthcare and a national health plan.

Had Booker T. Washington over for dinner at the White House. Not crap.

Was friends with Seth Bullock. Not crap.

Read Mornings On Horseback.

NC.

j_harvey wrote:Had Booker T. Washington over for dinner at the White House. Not crap.

Was friends with Seth Bullock. Not crap.

But was also a horrible, HORRIBLE racist (and not just by the standards of his time) and strong believer in eugenics. He believed that each race had its appointed place and he wanted to maintain that "natural" state of things.

Vainglorious and proto-genocidal imperialist. Detestable human being. Nice to see the unanimous "not crap" vote here. Wouldn't have bothered to vote if I'd known I was crapping into everyone's 6th-grade understanding of history.

Andrew. wrote:Vainglorious and proto-genocidal imperialist. Detestable human being. Nice to see the unanimous "not crap" vote here. Wouldn't have bothered to vote if I'd known I was crapping into everyone's 6th-grade understanding of history.

Ok, fine, puff out your chest and grumble.

When you're finished doing that, please show us some of the terrible things that Roosevelt did, as to balance the viewpoints.

(Seriously, though, I mean it: please do this if you have the time; the debate will be strengthened this way.)

Andrew. wrote:Vainglorious and proto-genocidal imperialist.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote:Americans lack the stomach for empire.

The original Neo-Con: It's a CRAP vote for me too (there's a reason Bush is such a TR fan), but how often do we get a president who attempts a "for-real" war against the American Plutocracy...or at the very least a lot of intimidating gestures? So yeah, the intense CRAPS are pretty clear. But here are some NOT CRAPs:

Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Feels good to eat beef without all that icky hemorrhaging!

Dissolved 40 monopolies.

Single-handedly placed 194 million acres of American land under federal protection.

Called for universal health care (but can't find anything at this late hour to show much effort on his part). Still, by American standards? Wow!

Turned down $100,000 of campaign cash from Standard Oil.

Negotiated peace between the Russians and the Japanese.

Rooted out mass corruption in the notorious New York City Police Department.

So, basically, helped popularize the Progressive movement: NOT CRAP.

But, masterminding a racist foreign policy that would give Cheney a Beezlebub-chub and thus setting the blueprint for America's current hard-on for conquest.? So, overall, CRAP.

When you are, quite literally, a white supremacist, it kind of fucks up your foreign policy.