Riding the Rough Rider right into the ground

George Will had an insightful column this week, where he takes the opportunity to rip into both Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain, reserving an extra dose of spleen for TR. It’s hardly news that McCain reveres Teddy, and he’s hardly the first modern politician to do so.

TR is a curious figure. Neoconservatives revere him for his Bully!-like manliness, which they seem to take to mean his refusal to allow pesky anachronisms like separation of powers and limited government to get in the way of his policies. Plus, he always liked a good war. Early progressives like New Republic-founder Herbert Croly felt similarly. David Brooks and Bill Kristol looked to TR as a kind of spiritual ancestor of their “national greatness” project (see here for Virginia Postrel’s sharp riposte).

Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger made the contrast between TR and the execrable Woodrow Wilson the framing device for his magisterial Diplomacy. He’s on to something, too. Weird Darwinist militancy aside, TR was a natural geopolitical strategist. He was the first politican to grasp the significance of Alfred T. Mahan‘s thought for U.S. foreign — and particularly maritime — policy.

He was capable of great subtlety as well; in the realm of foreign policy, at least, he actually applied his maxim, “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” (Elsewhere, it was quite the opposite: a relative said of him that “When Theodore attends a wedding he wants to be the bride and when he attends a funeral he wants to be the corpse.”)

The matter of Venezuelan debt to the European powers could have spiraled into a genuine crisis had TR not carefully handled the vain Kaiser Wilhelm II, in the service of upholding the Monroe Doctrine. He earned himself a Nobel Peace Prize by negotiating a settlement in the Russo-Japanese war — with the aim of preserving American interests in the Pacific.

I recall that it was something of a shock to discover the traditional conservative animus against TR (Mr. Will’s column marshals no new arguments in this regard, but it provides an admirable summary of the brief for the prosecution). In my youthful folly, I had held TR in rather high regard. Most of the blame for this is due to Edmund Morris’ The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which traces his life right up until the moment when he receives the news that McKinley’s death has made him president.

And it’s a wonderful book: beautifully written and so engaging it reads more like a novel than a biography. Truly, I’d recommend it to anyone, regardless of political persuasion. Politics aside, TR is a fascinating individual, and probably a great man of sorts — with all the difficulties that implies for the health of the republic.

Look, when his first wife and mother die within 24 hours of each other, and him barely into his 20’s, does he join a therapy group or make movies starring Susan Sarandon? No, he heads out to the Dakota Badlands to become a cowboy. He even single-handedly arrests a gang of cattle thieves.

I think part of the key to the disjunction between TR the man and TR the president is Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous line about TR’s cousin: “He has a second rate mind but a first rate temperament.” Well, TR had a first rate mind but something like a fifth rate temperament. And his mind really was first rate — he’s probably one of a mere handful of presidents to merit that distinction. Yet his wild mania and erratic judgment, which make him a fascinating subject for a biographer, made him a dangerous figure to be wielding executive power.

Meanwhile, his latter-day admirer, John McCain, shares too much of his temperament and probably not enough of his intellect. Life’s full of trade-offs.