First Contact: Or, It's Later Than You Think - By Evan Mandery Page 0,1
the President the best race, but whom Ralph could choose without insulting his boss. It would be bad to pick someone who the President perceived as unworthy, not so much because it would make for a bad hypothetical competition, but because the President would be hurt or even outraged that Ralph would think so little of the President as to select for his adversary someone whom the President held in such low regard. It would be particularly bad if Ralph inadvertently chose a former president who was effete, or more relevantly whom the current president believed to be effete. It would be particularly bad to pick a liberal.
Teddy Roosevelt seemed like a safe choice.
“I think I would go with Teddy Roosevelt, sir.”
“TR!” the President bellowed. “You have to be kidding me! TR couldn’t hold my jock. Everyone thinks TR is such an athlete because he bagged a few moose and took a hill in battle. Let me tell you a little secret: the Spanish had already abandoned the hill. And, besides, TR went up on a horse. He was a fat turd. Have you even seen Mount Rushmore? They only did the faces because they would have needed another whole mountain for TR’s ass. I don’t think he could even walk six miles. I’d kick TR’s butt.”
The President snapped Ralph with his towel. It was soapy and wet.
THE PRESIDENT IS NOT without basis in diminishing Teddy Roosevelt’s efforts in Cuba. The Spanish had not abandoned Kettle Hill, as the President claimed, but Roosevelt’s deeds were widely inflated in the press. He was the only one of the Rough Riders to remain mounted during the charge, primarily because he did not think he could keep up on foot in the tropical heat. Furthermore, the Spanish incomprehensibly kept thousands of soldiers in reserve at the nearby city of Santiago de Cuba, even though the Americans outnumbered them on the battlefield by more than ten to one. Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, but the victory could be attributed as much to Spanish incompetence as to American valor.
While Roosevelt may not have been as much of a hero at San Juan Heights as is popularly thought, he would have been in every other respect a worthy opponent for the President. A sickly, asthmatic child, TR embraced vigorous exercise and literally willed himself to robust health. In pictures of him as an undergraduate, he appears stout and barrel-chested. He wrestled and rowed crew while at Harvard, climbed the Matterhorn at the age of twenty-two despite a bad heart, and boxed well into his forties. At the age of fifty-five, Roosevelt led an expedition to chart the Amazon River, then known as the River of Doubt. This was toward the end of a life during which TR served as police commissioner in New York City, a colonel in the navy, governor of the state of New York, and president of the United States. Roosevelt managed in these various capacities to, among other substantial accomplishments, establish the National Park Service, mastermind the construction of the Panama Canal, and negotiate the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War.
TR understood in a very fundamental way the importance of living life to the fullest. As Roosevelt liked to say, he sucked the juice out of life.
BY COINCIDENCE I AM eating an orange right now, which I am doing by sucking out the juice but discarding the remains. This is how I like to eat oranges, though it seems like a waste and gives me some pause about the whole live-life-to-the-fullest thing. Any physician worth his salt will tell you the pulp is where the fiber is.
THE SNAPPING OF THE presidential towel suggested to Ralph his choice had been a success, which indeed it was. The President may have dismissed Roosevelt, but he was not insulted. He regarded Roosevelt as an opponent of worthy character, if not adequate swiftness, and he accepted the choice with good humor.
“Who would you pick, sir?” Ralph asked. It was obvious he was expected to ask this.
“That’s a thoughtful question,” the President said. He began a vigorous two-handed attack on the lower half of his torso as he pondered. “I’d pick Nixon,” he said finally.
“Was Nixon particularly fit, sir?”
“No. He was a good bowler. Good poker player, too. Not particularly fast, though. I just think he’d find a way to get the job done.”
“But you would beat him, sir.”
“I like to think so.”
The President lost himself in thought for a moment.