Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican President, can you name a Republican today who would make this statement?

Question

"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."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Answer 1

You'd also never see a Republican stand up for Conservation by creating (or even supporting) the National Forests and National Parks. Nor would you see a Republican stand up for the average working person against Big Business. Today, Theodore Roosevelt woul;d be branded as a Socialist and drummed out of the Republican Party. Actually the GOP was moving away from Teddy's philosophy 100 years ago and that's why he ran on a third party ticket for his second term.

Answer 2

One can take any statement and spin doctor it to make a point. If on the other hand one looks at Theodores total life I'm not to sure the Democrats would follow him. Today the Republican party is more liberal than either JFK or MLK. Neither individual were into the entitlements the parties purchase votes with today.

Maybe If the criticism was constructive i.e. though out alternative, Like Theodore was known for maybe the conservative side would have some respect for the Left.

Answer 3

I'm not sure he was the president at the time he made that statement, but either way it's spot on. The bunch of yahoos that compose the Bush Junta sure a heck ain't Eisenhower Republicans or Nixon or Jerry Ford Republicans either. They don't even claim to be. They call themselves the 'new conservatives'...the 'neo cons'! I guess Barry Goldwater wasn't good enough for these hyenas. Hard times, pilgrim! These bums are grinnin' because ONLY 35 American soldiers died this month....35 Americans, God knows how many Iraqis.....what a sick joke!

Answer 4

A republican today would not only not say it, they would not be able to think it.

Blind and unquestioning obedience is the earmark of a good republican these days. To question Bush is to commit high treason.

Nonetheless, TR was a truly great president. Not only was he president of the United States but, among many other great accomplishments, he also won the Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize.

TR was the last practicing member of "the party of Lincoln." After the republican party split in 1912, every Republican after TR is really just a member of "the party of Warren G. Harding."

Answer 5

To the poster named Jenna: Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt are not the same person. You probably got a lot of thumbs down because of that.

Answer 6

No one has told liberals that they shouldn't criticize the president. But when it's all they do even in their sleep it gets a little pathetic. To announce that I can't criticize them for that is not only unpatriotic and servile, it's morally treasonable.

Answer 7

Not that I know of, but the republican and democratic parties essentially switched ideologies in the 60s as a result of the civil rights movement. The southern democracts ("dixiecrats") became republican when the democrats invited blacks into the party - and the entire face of politics changed. So it is not surprising that Roosevelt would sound like a modern-day democrat.

Answer 8

Believe it or not I asked a question about Hillary talking to the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt and one of the people that answered my question told me he talked with Teddy, so I am going to go e-mail him to let you know what Teddy thinks.

Anybody should make that statement especially in the last two decades,if not they must be nuts. Take care.

Answer 9

He also said this in an address delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910, and it is more relevant in today's context.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."


Seems to me Teddy would be the first to give Bush his due credit for being a doer and unrelenting in his criticism of the timid.

He went on to say:

"Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier."



Again, seems to me he does not hold criticism as worthy of disdain, merely the critics of those forced into hard decisions with the courage to make a decision and the courage to stand by their decisions.

It should be noted that Teddy was a Republican "progressive", not to be confused with today's radical left. He was a conservationist and big game hunter and fought hard for women's suffrage at a time when it was not a popular position. He also fought well in a manufactured war with Spain and was a key figure in the non-isolationist movement that led to our ever-increasing "entanglements with foreign governments" which in turn bestowed our current title of "great Satan".



In today’s context and as a little r republican, as in we live in a republic not a democracy, it is not the criticism alone that is treason.

The primary weapon used by the enemy is terrorism, but their primary strategy is to divide us even more than our present day politics do. It is to set us one against the other so that we cannot mount an effective defense. It is how the criticism is aiding and abetting the enemy in their strategy, intended or not, that upsets people. Feel free to criticize Bush all you want, but we expect to hear criticism, 100 fold, for the enemy, not sympathy for nor understanding of their cause.

Much like our military leaders have said, their is no military solution. The enemy's only hope of victory is for us to defeat ourselves in the realm of politics. Claiming the war is lost, when in truth it has barely begun is premature surrender without offering any defense.

One last line from Teddy's address:

"We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not stand for justice though the whole world came in arms against him."

Justice is not within the realm of Islamist terrorists as justice is a tenet of Liberty and liberty is not their goal.

Answer 10

Yet the current president does the opposite and wants to become a historic figure.

Go figure.