Theodore Roosevelt: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''[[Catch Phrase|Bully!]]''}}

 

 

 

Theodore Roosevelt (also known as "Teddy" or "T.R.") is known for having been in the cavalry, leading the Rough Riders' charge on San Juan Hill, commissioning the Panama Canal, creating the US National Park System, and saying "speak softly, but carry a big stick" (the aircraft carrier ''USS Theodore Roosevelt'' is called "the big stick" by its crew). Before he became the 26th President of the United States, he was a [[Expansion Pack Past|governor, historian, adventurer, police chief, cavalryman, cowboy, explorer, hunter, naturalist, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, author of 35 books, conservationist, etc.]] He was a larger-than-life figure with a bombastic reputation as a total [[Badass]].

** [[Colonel Badass]]: He led the Rough Riders as a colonel during the Spanish-American War.

** [[Handicapped Badass]]: He was blind in one eye as a result of a boxing match. But did that ''ever stop him?'' The injury prompted him to take up a safer hobby: ''[[Only a Flesh Wound|judo.]]''

*** He famously had a severe coffee habit, which in light of his asthma makes perfect sense, since caffeine is an effective bronchodilator. He was self-medicating.

** [[Badass Family]]: Teddy's sons went off to perform their own badass exploits.

*** His son, [[The Brigadier|Brigadier General]] Theodore Roosevelt Jr, landed on [[World War II|Utah Beach]] during the first wave of the Normandy Invasion... when he was [[Badass Grandpa|56]], and [[Handicapped Badass|suffering from heart disease and arthritis]]. His actions on Utah Beach lead to him being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, after dying of a heart attack a month later.

* [[Big Applesauce]]: Teddy Roosevelt was born and raised in New York City, and had the [[Brooklyn Rage]] to prove it. He later became a crusading [[New York City Cops|NYPD Commissioner]], and famously took on corruption, even going to the lengths of personally patrolling the streets to ensure that his officers were doing their job of protecting the people. His crusade against corruption infuriated and confounded the local political bosses. He also instituted mandatory requirements for cops to stay in physical shape. He also personally walked through the slums of the city alongside muckraking journalist Jacob Riis. Riis later wrote in his autobiography:

{{quote|"When Roosevelt read [my] book, he came....No one ever helped as he did. For two years we were brothers in (New York City's crime-ridden) Mulberry Street. When he left I had seen its golden age.... [[Crazy Awesome|There is very little ease where Theodore Roosevelt leads]], as we all of us found out. The lawbreaker found it out who predicted scornfully that he would “knuckle down to politics the way they all did,” and lived to respect him, though he swore at him, as [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|the one of them all who was stronger than pull]]....that was what made the age golden, that for the first time a moral purpose came into the street. In the light of it everything was transformed.''}}

* [[Blood Knight]]: He had elements of this. He loved boxing and hunting and said that he didn't start any wars when he was president because he couldn't stand the thought of being stuck in the White House while American soldiers fought on the front lines. See [[Boisterous Bruiser]] and [[Colonel Kilgore]] below.

* [[Boisterous Bruiser]]

*** But is that a bad thing?

* [[Embarrassing Nickname]]: He ''really'' didn't like being called "Teddy". However, it wasn't because he hated it-- [[Tear Jerker|it was reportedly the pet name his first wife, Alice, gave to him]]. Roosevelt never really got over her [[Death by Childbirth]], so he shuddered at the thought of being called "Teddy".

* [[Genius Bruiser]]: Sure, he was a black belt in jujitsu and had a history as a champion boxer, but as mentioned above, he was also a fucking genius. Listing his ''intellectual'' achievements would take far too long, just go [[wikipedia:Theodore Roosevelt|to The Other Wiki]] and look at the "education" and "writer" sections.

* [[Gentleman Adventurer]]

** [[Crazy Awesome|He can't be both?]]

* [[Peace Through Superior Firepower]]: He believed in this. See the quotes page on that trope for his opinion.

* [[Reassignment Backfire]]: As Mark Hanna was attributed as saying, "I don't believe it - the goddamn cowboy's President!" (He was, though, always against the New York Republicans making TR vice-president for that very reason.)

* [[Sensitive Guy and Manly Man]]: Manly. [[William Howard Taft]] is the sensitive one.

* [[Specs of Awesome]]: Roosevelt took the awesome [[Up to Eleven]] in his lifetime. See above what happened to the guy that called him "Four-Eyes".

* [[Trope Namer]]: Besides the tropes mentioned above, the color "Alice blue" is named for the color of a dress worn by his daughter. Also, he's the reason we call them Teddy Bears.

* [[Ubermensch]]: His eyeglasses and moustache are even vaguely Neitzcheian.

* [[Values Dissonance]]: Engineered the overthrow of Colombia's government purely because it was economically advantageous to the US, and didn't bother trying to pretend otherwise. A president that openly tried this today would probably face impeachment.

** To be fair though, TR viewed his support of Panamanian revolutionaries against the Colombian government as being in the long-term best interests of all mankind. His belief was that by supporting the creation of Panama and building the Panama Canal there (the Panamanian revolutionaries were sympathetic to the idea of building the Canal through the isthmus, unlike the Colombian government), he would essentially be facilitating the creation of one of history's greatest infrastructure projects, one that could allow the whole world to trade more freely and thus improve the global economy and somewhat mitigate the effects of starvation and poverty, in his view. One may agree or disagree with this view, but at the very least, TR viewed it as an [[I Did What I Had to Do]] moment, and in later years still repeatedly declared his belief that the construction of the Panama Canal as his greatest accomplishment. [[Your Mileage May Vary]], obviously, which is why this does count as [[Values Dissonance]], and historians debate the merits of this idea to this day.

* [[White Anglo Saxon Protestant]]: Certainly the most [[Badass]] example.

** When humorist Finley Peter Dunne called Theodore a WASP, Roosevelt insisted that he was [[Freestate Amsterdam|Dutch]]. This also means that he could kick ass in a pair of wooden shoes.

* The ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire]]'' spinoff travel guide book, "Atlantis: Subterranean Tours" says Teddy was invited to Atlantis after the events of the film by Whitmore, who had established top secret trips to the lost city for celebrities, staff and colleagues of his.

* [[Martin Scorsese]] has had a biopic of Roosevelt in [[Development Hell]] for years now,{{when}} with the intention of T.R. being played by [[Leonardo DiCaprio]].

 

== Literature ==