Author | Conflict Analyst | Presenter | Professor
King George in Austr(al)ia

King George in Austr(al)ia

Teddy RooseveltMr. Pres(id)ent, thank you. Thank you for proving, once more, that any idiot can buy/steal/fool the electorate of this once-great country of ours.

Bull Moose, where have you gone?*

* My favorite Teddy Roosevelt moment… The presidential candidate for his newly formed Progressive Party, TR was shot on 14 October 1912 in Milwaukee, as he left his hotel to give a speech. The .38 caliber bullet (thankfully) struck his eye-glasses case and folded speech before becoming embedded in Roosevelt’s chest. Despite the orders of his doctors and advisors, TR proceeded to his engagement that evening and gave an eighty-some minute speech to the shocked audience — all while wearing his still blood-wet outfit. His astounding opening lines:

Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet — there is where the bullet went through — and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.