Oh, I don’t know. He was an advocate of whispering and fancied broken-off tree bits. What’s so badass about that?
Ever seen Walking Tall (original, not the remake)?
Yeah, but Washington’s were made of wood (yes, Martha coined the term “woody”).
You might point out that Roosevelt had been a weak, sickly, asthmatic child, and worked very hard to overcome it all.
You may have already seen it—heck, it may be where you got the idea from—but in case you haven’t, the Essential Text is The 5 Most Badass Presidents of All-Time.
I encourage you to watch Arsenic and Old Lace. Teddy’s performance is the best part of that movie.
Myself, I’ve always been struck by the fact his wife and mother both died on the same day – and on Valentine’s Day to boot! That was the whole impetus for his journey out West, to reflect and evaluate.
Go to Cracked.com.
Click on “Articles” and if it has to do with the presidency, chances are he will be in it, and they LOVE him over there.
It’s also very funny and sarcastic…might not be SFSC(safe for school children) but the info is true nonetheless.
Then there is this episode in the Badlands from 1884 (Let’s see, that would have made him about 26 at the time).
Dude was definitely badass.
Roosevelt wrote that he believed he had an encounter with Bigfoot in Idaho, in his book, The Wilderness Hunter.
Double-posting to say scratch that, he wrote about someone else’s encounter, but he seems to have believed the story.
According to the Ken Burns series about our national parks, when Teddy was a young man he heard that the bison were being hunted to extinction, so he travelled west to shoot one before they were all gone, lol!
I can’t really deny TR’s objective badassery, but I am hoping you will remember to include the more controversial aspects of his character, such as his imperialism and all the years he spent messing with Latin America. The U.S. has a long, long history of assisting and implementing government overthrows in Latin America order to support its own interests, and what happened in Panama would be a great example of this trend. On the other hand, you could talk about how he invited Booker T. Washington to the White House despite widespread criticism–IMHO that’s true badassery.
Ah, here’s one I remember. As president, Teddy wanted to sail the Navy around the world in a display of might, but Congress only approved half the funding needed. So Teddy sailed had the Navy sail halfway around the world, then told Congress if they wanted it back, they’d best cough up the funds. Which they did, unhappily. 