Quote:
teddy is understood to have supported big bidness privately. the trustbusting he did is probably more important symbolically than practically. less of a busting than a necessary temporary correction to avoid the east inda company-redux. us-steel exists, most of the country chooses between sumner redstone and charles dolan for cable and some strain of bell/at&t for the priveledge of using their phone lines. throw in microsoft and the fact that the overall trend in the last 100 years has been large companies merging, from banks to media conglomorates. this isn't necessarily bad, panicked competition and short-lived companies are less preferable than having to publically scold larger, stable companies when they get too predatory.
You can't blame TR from Microsoft! Prior TR the Sherman anti-trust act was used against unions; TR was the first to (successfully) use it against businesses and he did so 44 times.
Quote:
i'll put him on my top ten easily, top 2 for conflict/wartime leaders. he could lead, but he was a shameless media whore and there's ample cowardice behind his legend. still, despite a few dumb things, he got stuff done in his tenure. probably more than what you'd expect from 3-4 different presidencies.
Cowardice? TR?
I'm guessing you're complaining he brought along a paid public relations man to write newspaper stories for his glorification to Cuba. That was not so uncommon after the Civil War. And, while his role on San Juan Hill may have been over-hyped, he did lead the charge up Kettle Hill from the front, and lead two charges at San Juan hill (going back after the first because only five troops followed!).
_________________________
"If they can't picture me with a knife, forcing them to strip in an alley, I don't want any part of it. It's humiliating." - windsock