Letters to the Editor

• ¿ ¿ ¿ Theirs was a cult of "real" masculinity ? ? ?

  [Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
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  You're being too kind to the memory of Teddy Roosevelt. Swooning for T.R.'s "real" masculinity is like swooning for Rudy Giuliani's "real" masculinity.

  Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., had exactly ONE DAY of combat, and then he built that day into a legend, and he rode that legend to Washington, D.C.

  "Mr. Dooley", the imaginary Irish saloon keeper created by Finley Peter Dunne, observed that T.R.'s "Rough Riders" memoir should have been titled, "Alone in Cuba."

  A BOOK REVIEW

  
  Well sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I jus' got hold iv a book, Hinnissy, that suits me up to th' handle, a gran' book, th' grandest iver seen. Ye know I'm not much throubled be lithrachoor, havin' manny worries iv me own, but I'm not prejudiced again' books. I am not. Whin a rale good book comes along I'm as quick as anny wan to say it isn't so bad, an' this here book is fine. I tell ye 'tis fine."

  "What is it?" Mr. Hennessy asked languidly.

  . . . "'I will lave th' janial author tell th' story in his own wurruds.

  . . . "'I sint th' ar-rmy home an' attackted San Juon hill. Ar-rmed on'y with a small thirty-two which I used in th' West to shoot th' fleet prairie dog, I climbed that precipitous ascent in th' face iv th' most gallin' fire I iver knew or heerd iv. But I had a few r-rounds iv gall mesilf an' what cared I? I dashed madly on cheerin' as I wint. Th' Spanish throops was dhrawn up in a long line in th' formation known among military men as a long line. I fired at th' man nearest to me an' I knew be th' expression iv his face that th' trusty bullet wint home. It passed through his frame, he fell, an' wan little home in far-off Catalonia was made happy be th' thought that their riprisintative had been kilt be th' future governor iv New York. Th' bullet sped on its mad flight an' passed through th' intire line fin'lly imbeddin' itself in th' abdomen iv th' Ar-rch-bishop iv Santiago eight miles away. This ended th' war.'

  . . . "I have thried, Hinnissy," Mr. Dooley continued, "to give you a fair idee iv th' contints iv this remarkable book, but what I've tol' ye is on'y what Hogan calls an outline iv th' principal pints. Ye'll have to r-read th' book ye'ersilf to get a thrue conciption. I haven't time f'r to tell ye th' wurruk Tiddy did in ar-rmin' an' equippin' himself, how he fed himsilf, how he steadied himsilf in battle an' encouraged himsilf with a few well-chosen wurruds whin th' sky was darkest. Ye'll have to take a squint into th' book ye'ersilf to l'arn thim things."

  "I won't do it," said Mr. Hennessy. "I think Tiddy Rosenfelt is all r-right an' if he wants to blow his hor-rn lave him do it."

  "Thrue f'r ye," said Mr. Dooley, "an' if his valliant deeds didn't get into this book 'twud be a long time befure they appeared in Shafter's histhry iv th' war. No man that bears a gredge again' himsilf 'll iver be governor iv a state. An' if Tiddy done it all he ought to say so an' relieve th' suspinse. But if I was him I'd call th' book 'Alone in Cubia.'"

  - - Finley Peter Dunne

  Gore Vidal wrote,

  Edith Wharton described with what pride TR showed her a photograph of himself and the Kaiser with the Kaiser's inscription: "President Roosevelt shows the Emperor of Germany how to command an attack."

  
  . . . I once asked Alice Longworth just why her father was such a war-lover.

  She denied that he was.

  I quoted her father's dictum: "No triumph of peace is quite as great as the supreme triumph of war." A sentiment to be echoed by yet another sissy in the next generation: "Meglio un giorno da leone che cento anni da pecora."

  "Oh, well," she said, "that's the way they all sounded in those days."

  But they did not all sound that way. Certainly Theodore, Senior, would have been appalled, and I doubt if Eleanor really approved of Uncle Teddy's war-mongering.

  - - The New York Review of Books, August 13, 1981

  Permalink Friday, May 25, 2007 04:35 PM

• Golden Boy

  [Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Golden Boy :

  While you compose your answer, consider what Zahed has responded with. I took some time to look at his site - altmuslim.com - and read the comments from the people there. Many of the Muslims there are disturbed by the poll, too. One poster suggested that they, the Muslim community in America, should not take comfort in the fact that other demographics also support violence against civilians, a comment that received a lot of support. Would that Glenn's supporters could be as honest and brave.

  - - Golden Boy - - Friday, May 25, 2007 05:25 PM

  Yeah, now I see it. Until Golden Boy reminded me, I had somehow forgotten all about how I and the other regulars here had all disagreed with Glenn Greenwald when Glenn Greenwald wrote, "undoubtedly some American Muslims embrace the most reprehensible fringes of Islamic extremism."

  Permalink Friday, May 25, 2007 06:40 PM