Posts Tagged ‘Teddy Roosevelt’

This should be our policy in Israel: American hostages released or Hamas leaders dead

Posted: November 26, 2023 by John Ruberry in Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

In 1904, a Greek American, Ion Hanford Perdicaris, was kidnapped by Ahmed al-Raisuli, a Moroccan tribal leader. Theodore Roosevelt was president. And the official American response to Perdicaris being taken hostage was simple: “We want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” There’s more. Roosevelt sent several companies of Marines and seven warships to Morocco. 

The end result was a compromise. Perdicaris was freed and the sultan of Morocco paid a ransom to Raisuni, but also $4,000 to the United States to cover the expenses of the incident.

Moving to the present, our current president, Joe Biden, hasn’t done much more than beg for the release of ten-or-so Americans held in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. 

Yeah, yeah, I know the rest of that narrative, which roughly is, “We’re working behind the scenes to secure the release of all American hostages,” or something like that. 

Begging is more accurate, I believe.

As of this writing, 58 hostages have been released by Hamas, but only one American, 4-year-old Abigail Mor Edan, whose parents were murdered by the terrorists. She was released this morning, as part of third round of hostage released–a fourth is expected on Monday—which is part of a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Israel in turn has released at least 100 Palestinian prisoners.

Obviously, most of the released hostages are Israelis, but ten Thai hostages are now free, as well as one Filipino and one Russian.

Thailand clearly gets more respect than America, although none of the hostages should have been taken.

Hostage-taking and purposeful killing of civilians are both war crimes–not that Hamas cares about that. 

Biden, who favors a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians–which would presumably include Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists–came across far less forceful than Teddy Roosevelt, when speaking of Abigail’s release.

“What she endured is unthinkable,” Biden said. “Thank God she’s home. I just can’t imagine the enjoyment. I wish I were there to hold her.” 

Eww.

Instead, Biden should say this: American hostages released or the Hamas leaders dead.

But Biden, even though he is clearly suffering from cognitive decline, apparently still has enough brain cells for now to realize he’s a tool of the growing hate-Israel wing within the Democrat Party.

Election Day in America is less than a year away.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Reassessing presidential legacies: TR, FDR, and JFK

Posted: May 24, 2022 by chrisharper in politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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In my months-long deep dive into biographical treatises on U.S. presidents, I found several—Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight Eisenhower—had not gotten their historical due.

I also found several—Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy—whose overrated administrations failed more often than they succeeded. 

Overall, these three presidents greatly expanded the power of the presidency, which until Teddy’s White House had often been subservient to the Congress. Moreover, the trio made citizens far more dependent on the government for their livelihood—an issue that still creates myriad problems today. 

Although Teddy’s reputation has fallen lately because of his racist views, his legacy has other significant failings.

Gary Gerstle, a professor of history at the University of Cambridge, said that Teddy’s economic legacy was a forebearer to the strategies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

“If we brought him back, that’s exactly where he would fit on the political spectrum,” he said in 2019 on the 100th anniversary of Teddy’s death.

His presidency gave credibility to the progressive movement, lending the prestige of the White House to welfare legislation and government regulation. His creation of the Bull Moose Party in 1912 undermined the Republican Party, leading to the election of one of the worst presidents in history, Woodrow Wilson.

His cousin Franklin gets high marks for his efforts during World War II, albeit with some caveats. But FDR’s domestic policies created so much dependence on the federal government that his programs hamper many people even now.  

Sidney Milkis, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, summed up the downside of FDR’s reign. 

“Critics have questioned not only his policies and positions but also charged him with centralizing power in his own hands by controlling both the government and the Democratic Party. Many denounced his breaking the no-third-term tradition in 1940. Long after Roosevelt’s death, new lines of attack opened to criticize his policies regarding helping the Jews of Europe, incarcerating Japanese Americans on the West Coast, and opposing anti-lynching legislation,” Milkis wrote. Moreover, FDR’s capitulation at the Yalta Conference in 1945 led to the Soviet Union’s control of Eastern Europe for the next four decades. 

Many FDR supporters argue that he brought the country out of the Depression. But later analyses of his massive spending programs demonstrate that World War II finally created a sound economic footing for the country. 

William E. Leuchtenburg, professor emeritus of the University of North Carolina, wrote that little had changed from 1932 when FDR was first elected to deal with economic issues.

“[I]n the fall of 1937, industrial production fell by 33 percent, national income dropped by 12 percent, and industrial stock prices plummeted by 50 percent. Nearly 4 million people lost their jobs, and the total number of unemployed increased to 11.5 million. 

“World War II, not the New Deal, brought an end to the Great Depression. The war sparked the kind of job creation and massive public and private spending that finally lifted the United States out of its economic doldrums.”

The positive assessment of JFK’s presidency has puzzled me for some time. Simply put, he didn’t do much during his less than three years in office. In his book, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, my former colleague Fred Kempe excoriated Kennedy’s actions during the Bay of Pigs, his inept Vienna summit with Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, and his dreadful response to the construction of the Berlin Wall. All these errors, Kempe argued, led Khrushchev to see the United States as weak and encouraged him to try to plant missiles on Cuban soil. Fortunately, JFK handled that showdown relatively well. See https://www.fredkempe.com/berlin-1961

JFK’s sexual antics went unreported by the media until long after his death—as did his many physical ailments and subsequent drug abuse hindered his judgment at times.

I think his legacy has been propped up by my generation’s seminal shared moment of remembering where we were on November 22, 1963.