Today, you are a member of … Incomparables
Undoubtedly, Members, if TR (our fine Col. Roosevelt’s preferred moniker) was alive, one would have cause to believe there would be curiosity about his take on the current election cycle. In actuality, of course, curiosity would be at a minimum – TR never waited for an invitation or safe opening to speak his mind. And on this day back in 1912, TR stumped hard for his Progressive Party presidential bid, even though at the time, he was shot in the chest, a perpetration committed by a reactionary malformity named John F. Schrank. Check it out:
“I am not sick at all. – I am all right. I cannot tell you of what infinitesimal importance I regard this incident [being shot] as compared with the great issues at stake in this campaign, and I ask it not for my sake, not the least in the world, but for the sake of common country, that they make up their minds to speak only the truth, and not use that kind of slander and mendacity which if taken seriously must incite weak and violent natures to crimes of violence. Don’t you make any mistake. Don’t you pity me. I am all right. I am all right and you cannot escape listening to the speech either.”
Now it would be safe to say that, here in the present day, supporters of the more grandiose ilk would liken their candidate to TR and his tenacity. But Members would know it’s more apt to liken the notorious HRC to the speech itself – evidence of the public lexiconical manner in which politics spheres itself, an oratory given despite incredible lengths to go to prevent it, not only by the gun wielder, but by TR’s concerned staff. It also would be more apt to compare the man with the hair to the pixelated newsprint that distorts the scan of the newsprint by which you can read about this incident. So this week, Members, as we roll into the fin de siecle of Election 2016, mull this comparison and keep in mind that the bodies in which you choose to express your political self – even fantastical, historical, long dead ones – have literal, figurative, and incomparable weight.
