"Theodore Roosevelt way more badass than you thought."

"Firstly, he had a fight club in the basement of the White House...."

"We don’t need presidents who have weird obsessions."

Said Kamala Harris, back in October 2020, blogged at the time, here.

I know that at the time I thought I bet all the Presidents have had a weird obsession. I know because I said that in a podcast at the time. 

That post and podcast predated access to Grok, so I didn't have the chance to use this prompt: Accept the hypothesis that every U.S. President had a weird obsession and to list all the Presidents with their weird obsession. I did use it today, though. Some of my favorites:

Deploying the TR precedent to promote fighting at the White House.

UFC just dropped a killer AI promo for tomorrow’s White House event featuring Theodore Roosevelt boxing 🥊🔥pic.twitter.com/W8wu2yFP6b

— TaraBull (@TaraBull) June 14, 2026

The video, from UFC, quotes from Theodore Roosevelt's idea of "the man in the arena." I've put up the full text of it in the past — here — but it's worth having at your fingertips today, as Trump celebrates his 80th birthday. Does this describe Trump?

"The Trump administration has urged professional football’s leaders to induct Theodore Roosevelt into the sport’s hall of fame..."

"... with one top official predicting it will happen within the year.... [Historians and sports experts have said [Theodore] Roosevelt played a crucial role by forcing a national conversation around football safety, rather than leaving it to factions that could not agree on next steps. Edward O’Keefe, the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library pointed to some of the specific changes to football that resulted from Roosevelt’s interventions. 'He helped invent the forward pass,' said O'Keefe. 'He made some of the first safety measures that continue to make the game possible today.'"

From "Trump officials push Theodore Roosevelt for Pro Football Hall of Fame/'I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted,' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at an event on Thursday" (WaPo).

I went looking in Edmund Morris's "Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" for some meatier material about TR and football. I found this on page 598:

“What matters a few broken bones to the glories of inter-collegiate sport?” he cried at a Harvard Club dinner. (Meanwhile, not far away in hospital, the latest victim of football savagery lay paralyzed for life.) He declared publicly that he would “disinherit” any son of his who refused to play college games. And in private, through clenched teeth: “I would rather one of them should die than have them grow up as weaklings.”

"The Teddy [bear] craze was followed by a moral panic, as crazes involving kids inevitably are."

"Students in a New York University sewing class were forbidden to make Teddy bears, lest they 'breed idleness among children.' A Catholic priest in Michigan went further, preaching that if little white girls were allowed to play with 'the horrible monstrosity' instead of dolls, they would fail to develop their maternal instincts and doom the race to suicide...."

From "The Race to Give Every Child a Toy/For most of history, parents couldn’t buy their kids dolls, action figures, or the like. Then playtime became big business" (The New Yorker).

Before the Teddy bear, the toy market did not exist in the sense that it does now. For much of the nineteenth century, dolls were made at home from corn husks, clothing scraps, and the like, or produced from expensive, fragile bisque porcelain and kept high up on shelves to be admired by grownup collectors, not pawed by clumsy kids. Most children had marbles, hoops, balls, and little else. Few people bought toys from stores. The success of the Teddy bear changed that...

Here's the book under discussion: "Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America" (commission earned).

Another snapshot from a presidential biography.

Texted, just now, from my son Chris, who reads presidential biographies:

The book is "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism" (commission earned).

I think there's some fat-shaming there, no? Or fat-celebrating. Also: "Venezuelan troubles."

"Trump joins a long list of presidents who have left their imprint on the White House. Theodore Roosevelt replaced greenhouses to construct the West Wing."

"William Howard Taft constructed the first Oval Office in 1909. Richard M. Nixon converted a swimming pool into the press briefing room in 1970. The modern East Wing wasn’t even built until World War II to cover up an underground bunker. Harry S. Truman gutted the White House interior and added the balcony that bears his name. Purists decried it. Now it’s a hallmark. The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past. Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification. In that way, Trump’s undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere."

Writes The Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "In defense of the White House ballroom Donald Trump vs. the NIMBYs."

And let me just put this here. Some members of the press would like a bigger White House briefing room:

"[T]he White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away..."

"... from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.... The White House Ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time, it’s theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942...."

The White House announces, on its website. The project costs $200 million, and Trump and other donors are paying for it

Am I correct in reading that text to mean that the East Wing will be demolished? I don't see the word demolition, but I see that the structure as it now exists is called "small, heavily changed, and reconstructed." So that seems to mean the structure will be heavily changed and reconstructed one more time, don't you think?

Reading the history of the East Wing as recounted by Wikipedia, I can see why the part of it that's above ground can be regarded as unworthy and subject to complete replacement:

President Thomas Jefferson added colonnaded terraces to the east and west sides of the White House, but no actual wings. Under Jackson in 1834, running water was piped in from a spring and pumped up into the east terrace in metal tubes. These ran through the walls and protruded into the rooms, controlled by spigots. Initially, the water was for washing items, but soon the first bathing rooms were created, in the ground-level east colonnade. Van Buren had shower baths installed here. The East Terrace was removed in 1866. For many years, a greenhouse occupied the east grounds of the White House.

The first small East Wing was built during the Theodore Roosevelt renovations, as an entrance for formal and public visitors. This served mainly as an entrance for guests during large social gatherings, when it was necessary to accommodate many cars and carriages. Its primary feature was the long cloak room with spots for coats and hats of the ladies and gentlemen. 

The East Wing as it exists today is a two-story structure and was added to the White House in 1942 primarily to cover the construction of an underground bunker, now known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Around the same time, Theodore Roosevelt's coatroom became the movie theater. Later, offices for correspondence, calligraphers and the social secretary were placed in the East Wing....

Rosalynn Carter, in 1977, was the first first lady to keep her own office in the East Wing....

Shower baths! Coat room! Calligraphy! First ladies! Movie theater! Get that outta here.

I think it's pretty cool that Trump, the builder, wants to leave his mark on the building. He knows how to do it well and he takes immense pride in architectural work and actually cares about beauty.

ADDED: Here's a nice article at The Beautiful Home, "Jefferson's White House."

When asked by L’Enfant, Washington, D.C.’s civic designer, what style he would prefer for the nation’s administrative building, Jefferson responded, “the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years.” Soon after, a competition was held for design of the President’s House. There were six designs submitted, one of which was anonymous. With care and taste George Washington chose from the six a design by the excellent Jms. Hoban, the White House you know today. Jms. Small’s design was okay, yet that anonymous design … hum … exceeding fine, well proportioned, noble without majesty, domed, much in Thos. Jefferson’s style … because it is Jefferson, this author and other experts now agree. Though he did not win the competition, Jefferson did when President design the White House grounds with gardens, woods, and sweeping carriage path both elegant and eloquent. For many years the White House retained a Jeffersonian tincture. Yet all that is left of those eloquent paths is memory and a sketch....

"That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028."

Said "Frank Luntz: Booker marathon speech 'may have changed the course of political history'" (The Hill).

Everyone's talking like Trump now. Just get rid of the weasel word "may" and you have Trump-style rhetoric: Booker's speech changed the course of political history.

And then there was Elon Musk the other day, saying that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election would affect the entire destiny of humanity. No, he wasn't that Trumpian. He had weasel words. He said "I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will."

Speaking of speaking bluntly, here's Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley talking about that election:

The President as King.

A cartoon from 1832:

 

AND: There's also this, from 1904:

"During remarks to employees at the American Embassy in Panama City, Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban migrants, joked..."

"... that he’d told aides that he wanted to pay his first visit 'to a place where they speak Spanish, because I’m bilingual,' proceeding to show off his fluency in the language. Mr. Rubio acknowledged America’s complicated history with Panama, a former Colombian territory that was founded after President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, eyeing the potential for a shortcut between America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, backed breakaway separatists who declared independence in 1903. Mr. Rubio noted that the country 'was born in many ways here as a result of the interests of the United States,' and said the relationship had had its 'ups and downs.' The downs include a 1989 U.S. invasion of the country to arrest the country’s de facto ruler, Gen. Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking and racketeering.... [Panama's President José Raúl] Mulino also said on Sunday that Panama, which in 2017 became the first country in the region to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a far-reaching infrastructure program, would not renew the agreement...."

I'm reading the NYT coverage of Marco Rubio's trip to Panama, "In Panama, Rubio Says China Threatens Canal, Demanding ‘Immediate’ Action/The secretary of state said the United States could take steps to 'protect its rights.' Panama’s leader said he was sure that President Trump wouldn’t seize the canal."

The NYT says Rubio "showed off" his fluency in Spanish and "joked" about it, as if it were an amusing side line. But it is important and tremendously useful to his role as Secretary of State. Perhaps to recognize its high value would be to impugn all the many Secretaries of State who were not fluent in Spanish.

If my research — hastily done on Grok — is correct, there was only one other Secretary of State who was fluent in Spanish. That was Henry Clay, back in the time of John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829. What about Thomas Jefferson? — you may be wondering. Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, was fluent in French, Latin, and Italian, but had only a minimal knowledge of Spanish.

The performance of power in the arena and in the Oval Office.

Trump had a busy day yesterday, but let's focus on the showmanship in the signing of all those orders. First, on a little red-carpeted stage in the Capitol One Arena, he is literally The Man in the Arena (as Theodore Roosevelt put it):

 

He's got the people surrounding him, watching him sign papers at a tiny table, and they're fully engaged in the show he's putting on, as if it's a big boxing match going on there in that little square in the center of the arena. Whoever thought of dramatizing order-signing like that and getting a rowdy crowd to cheer as if it's a sport? 

Later, in the Oval Office, he signed more orders, this time in front of the press elite, and when they ventured questions, he answered — calmly, chattily, seriously, and easily. Joe Biden couldn't even answer one question from the press or get to the end of a single sentence without stumbling, and here's Trump, signing orders — take that, Paris Agreement — and holding a press conference at the same time... and showing no strain, even at the end of a long day of events, and with the Inaugural Ball yet to come:

Is it dangerous — reprehensible? — this showmanship in the exercise of power? Those who hate him and who hate the substance of those orders will, I presume, denounce the theatricality. It's cruel! But he's out there in the open, letting the people see him do his work, using the power he asked them to give him, and doing what he said he would do. What a contrast to Biden who campaigned hidden away in 2020 and who occupied the position of President without ever letting us see that — if! — he was the one doing the work.

After 4 years of The Man in the Basement, we have, once again, The Man in the Arena.

ADDED: Here's how Biden looked, signing his first executive orders — yay, Paris Agreement! — in the Oval Office in 2021. Scroll to 2:30 to hear — muffled behind masks — the first questions from the press. Biden answers one question as we hear aides hustling the reporters out of the room:

"[W]hile naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse."

"He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology. 'For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media, 'the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.' On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama. 'The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,' he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. 'This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.' He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the 'wrong hands,' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself."

From "Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time/In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his 'America First' philosophy has an expansionist dimension" (NYT).

I didn't think it was a joke the first time he talked about Greenland. I don't think it's so much that he's an "expansionist." I think he's looking for American's bad deals and intent on renegotiating them. He's continually complained that other countries are taking advantage of us. Wanting to change that dynamic is not an "expansionist" frame of mind. The United States takes responsibility for the world's security — or purports to — and that exposes us to exploitation. Trump seems to think he's the one to straighten that out. You can say that's a bad idea, but please address that and explain why.

I googled "world leaders who laugh" and Google treated it as if I had googled "world leaders who laugh at Trump."

 

Link.

My hypothesis is that Google is actively skewing searches to influence the election. But I get the same effect at DuckDuckGo. And Bing. I also tried Grok, and it foisted Harris and Trump on me repeatedly, even when I demanded that it stop. 

I was googling a propos of the previous post, which is about Kamala Harris's laughing and got me wondering what kind of world leaders are associated with laughing. Are they heroes or villains? I could only think of one, a great American hero:

"As I watched the TV footage of former president Donald Trump being grazed by a bullet but avoiding death by millimeters, I remembered how I felt when I was shot."

"There’s survivor’s guilt, bewilderment, fearlessness, gratitude and the gnawing question of, 'Why was I spared?'... Before my life was almost snuffed out, I would have described myself as risk averse. I was cautious, conservative and played only by the rules. Afterward, I lived my life differently, with a real sense that there wasn’t time to wring my hands or to weigh the pros or cons of a certain action.... "

Writes Jackie Speier, a former member of the House of Representatives, "How getting shot changed me/Before, I was risk averse. After, I lived my life differently" (WaPo).

Speier was shot, nearly 46 years ago, alongside Rep. Leo Ryan, who was assassinated while attempting to investigate what was going on with Jim Jones in "Jonestown" in Guyana. Speier took 5 bullets "and lay on an anthill for 22 hours before being rescued."

Speier's words reminded me of something I happened to quote earlier this morning, Theodore Roosevelt's idea of "the man in the arena":

Bully.

I'm reading "White House’s Efforts to Combat Misinformation Face Supreme Court Test/The justices must distinguish between persuading social media sites to take down posts, which is permitted, and coercing them, which violates the First Amendment."

This is Adam Liptak's piece in the NYT about the case that's up for oral argument in the Supreme Court.

[A 5th Circuit panel] said the [Biden administration] officials had become excessively entangled with the platforms or used threats to spur them to act.... [The administration argues] that the government was entitled to express its views and to try to persuade others to take action.

“A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the president believes would advance the public interest,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote.

In response, lawyers for the states wrote that the administration had violated the First Amendment. “The bully pulpit,” they wrote, “is not a pulpit to bully.”

As we await today's argument, let's take a moment to consider what the "bully" in "bully pulpit" means. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt exclaimed: "I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit!" First, clearly, he was using "bully" — as he often did — to mean very good or excellent. And he used the word "pulpit," because he knew he was preaching, that is, proclaiming righteous opinions in public.

Pressuring people behind the scenes is not preaching. You're not in a metaphorical pulpit. You're in the metaphorical backroom. And you're not proclaiming righteous opinions, you're exerting power, intimidating people. It's not "bully" in the sense of excellent.

The OED entry for "bully pulpit" is clear that "bully pulpit" originates with Theodore Roosevelt. It explained "his personal view of the presidency." It is — as the OED puts it — "A public office or position of authority that provides its occupant with the opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any issue." 

We're also told: "In later use sometimes understood as showing bully n.1 II.3a." That meaning of "bully" is:

Originally: a man given to or characterized by riotous, thuggish, and threatening behaviour; one who behaves in a blustering, swaggering, and aggressive manner. Now: a person who habitually seeks to harm, coerce, or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable; a person who engages in bullying.

If "bully pulpit" is sometimes understood that way, it's risky to argue "A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office’s bully pulpit...."

The riposte was predictable: "The bully pulpit is not a pulpit to bully."

I want to add that what is said behind the scenes is not from the pulpit at all. A pulpit is an elevated and conspicuous platform. One thing about social media posts is that they are out there, in public, and perfectly conspicuous. If the President (or the shadowy people behind him) want to use the"central dimension of presidential power" that is the "bully pulpit," let them step up onto a conspicuous platform and proclaim opinions they intend us to find righteous.

In this case, the opinion that was conveyed behind the scenes was that social media platforms ought to take down posts on various political topics — coronavirus vaccines, claims of election fraud, and Hunter Biden’s laptop — that people wanted to debate. If it's pulpit-worthy, express that opinion outright and clearly to all of us. Don't go behind our back and intimidate the social media giants upon whom we, the little people, depend to slightly amplify our tiny voices.

"Women and people of color are not considered the readers of presidential history. And I think that’s related to this emphasis on masculinity."

Said Alexis Coe, author of the George Washington biography, “You Never Forget Your First,” quoted in "Why are historians obsessed with George Washington’s thighs?" (WaPo).

Ron Chernow (“Washington: A Life”) fixated on his “virile form,” particularly his “wide, flaring hips with muscular thighs.” Richard Brookhiser (“Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington”) remarked on his “well developed” thighs and quoted a bodybuilder who examined a Washington portrait and said, “Nice quads.” Joseph J. Ellis (“His Excellency: George Washington”) wrote that his “very strong thighs and legs ... allowed him to grip a horse’s flanks tightly and hold his seat in the saddle with uncommon ease.”... 

Why does Coe think women aren't interested in male body parts?! It seems to me that the focus on the physical body is especially interesting to women. I think biographies should tell us a lot about how people looked and what sort of physical powers and problems they had. I'd think male authors may tend to want to tell us about the physical attributes of the female characters, so it's good for them to make an effort to depict the masculinity of the men. 

By the way, since when are "wide, flaring hips" considered highly masculine?

"One image shared by a user on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended on Thursday."

"X suspended several accounts that posted the faked images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies’ efforts to remove them.... Researchers now fear that deepfakes are becoming a powerful disinformation force, enabling everyday internet users to create nonconsensual nude images or embarrassing portrayals of political candidates."

From "Explicit Deepfake Images of Taylor Swift Elude Safeguards and Swamp Social Media/Fans of the star and lawmakers condemned the images, probably generated by artificial intelligence, after they were shared with millions of social media users" (NYT).

Combining a photo of the head of a famous person with a photo of someone else's body is an old trick. I remember when Jon Stewart did it to the Supreme Court Justices in his book "America (The Book)." From 2004:

Bangs came up, organically, reminding me I still need to do that post about today being the 20th anniversary of the first day of this blog.

 

I've been looking forward to this date, so I could say, look, I've been writing this blog — writing every single day — for 20 years. 20 years! But what I like about blogging is that it's in the moment, spontaneous, so any sort of required occasion feels contrary to the essential nature of the enterprise.

That's why I've already written 6 posts today, and I've yet to do the 20-year anniversary post. But now it's happened. And all because I wanted to tell you what Theodore Roosevelt said about the 1913 Armory Show, and he'd used the phrase "lunatic fringe."

It turned out he was the first one, as far as the OED has noticed, to use "lunatic fringe" to mean something other than women's bangs. In 1874, someone had used "lunatic fringe" to mean "A woman or girl's hairstyle in which the front is cut straight and square across the forehead":

'Was that why you studied so hard all winter, and wouldn't go to singing-school, you sly thing?’ said Lizzie, eyebrows and lunatic fringe almost meeting again. Our Boys & Girls....

And there it was, the spontaneous thing: a portal back to the first day of the blog, January 14, 2004. There are a number of posts in the 20-year archive that bear the tag "bangs," but click on that and scroll, and you'll get back to...

Next to me at the hair-washing station of the salon was a woman who was ranting about bangs. "I've always had bangs. Then, not having bangs, I was going crazy." Googling "bangs," by the way, is not a good way to come up with websites about the kind of bangs people rave about in hair salons.

That was the fifth and last post of the first day. One thing fell trippingly after another... for 20 years!

***

Here's the post from 2 days ago where I noted the upcoming blog milestone and — seeking material for today's post — asked readers if they'd point out something in the 20-year archive that somehow might seem to them to represent the essence of what this blog is. There are 143 comments there, and you can add more here, but let me pick out a few: 

"It is vitally necessary to move forward and to shake off the dead hand... of the reactionaries; and yet we have to face the fact..."

"... that there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement. In this recent art exhibition the lunatic fringe was fully in evidence, especially in the rooms devoted to the Cubists and the Futurists, or Near-Impressionists...."

Wrote Theodore Roosevelt, in 1913, in "A Layman’s View of an Art Exhibition."

"The Cubists are entitled to the serious attention of all who find enjoyment in the colored puzzle pictures of the Sunday newspapers. Of course there is no reason for choosing the cube as a symbol, except that it is probably less fitted than any other mathematical expression for any but the most formal decorative art. There is no reason why people should not call themselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists, or Knights of the Isosceles Triangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they so desire; as expressing anything serious and permanent, one term is as fatuous as another."