Chapter –XXV

THYROID STORM

Caesar non super grammaticos

(The emperor cannot defy the grammarians.)

--Marcus Pomponius Marcellus to Tiberius

When speaking in his capacity as an ideologue, George Bush has always expressed a
great admiration for Theodore Roosevelt. When Bush moved into the Oval Office, he
removed the portrait of Calvin Coolidge placed there by Reagan and replaced it with a
likeness of the Rough Rider. Bush's references to his devotion to Theodore Roosevelt are
strewn across his public career, and especially his White House years. They came thick
and fast during the period of the Panama invasion, but were also prominent during the
Gulf crisis. Here is one from late November, 1990:

Certainly I get inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt. Actually there's a parallel, not an exact
parallel obviously, between San Juan Hill and Kuwait City. I've just been reading an
interesting treatise on Teddy Roosevelt; his conviction and his determination and his
leadership inspire me. All of those things inspire Presidents, I think. [fn 1]

Bush's endorsement for Teddy Roosevelt is an endorsement for a world outlook and for a
policy orientation. Inseparably from that, it is also a statement of affinity for a certain
form of psychopathology that is associated with Teddy.

As one of the authors has shown [fn 2], Roosevelt's maternal uncle was Captain James D.
Bulloch, the head of the Confederate intelligence services in Europe and the outfitter of
the infamous Confederate raiders Alabama, Shenandoah, and others. Theodore
Roosevelt's elevation to the presidency represented a personal union between the New
York-Boston patrician financiers with the secessionist slaveholders. First and foremost,
Teddy Roosevelt was a political steward of the Morgan interests which dominated Wall
Street. We see that Teddy Roosevelt's networks shared some essential features with those
of George Bush. In many ways, these are the same networks.

In outlook and policy, Theodore Roosevelt was the president who elevated the solidarity
of the white race, and especially of its alleged "Anglo-Saxon" component, above the
ideas of the American Revolution. The argument was that shared "blood," language,
culture, and the other bonds among the "English- speaking peoples" were far more
important than the American System of Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Henry Clay,