McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt was more socialist than Obama. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine

McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt was more socialist than Obama. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine:

All from Tim Noah's Slate.com post from before the election. I got an email from a local restauranteur decrying "villifying the rich" and complaining about complaining about excessive corporaatte entertaining.

T.R., of course, was no socialist. Indeed, his purpose was largely to prevent socialists from coming to power. But the trust buster got called a socialist a lot more often than Obama ever will. He writes in his autobiography:

Because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble even to notice the epithet. … Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers. They are opposed to the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us.

T.R. then goes on to outline his strong differences 'with the Marxian Socialists' and their belief in class warfare and the inevitable demise of capitalism. Later, he returns to his earlier theme:

Many of the men who call themselves socialists today are in reality merely radical social reformers, with whom on many points good citizens can and ought to work in hearty general agreement, and whom in many practical matters of government good citizens can well afford to follow.

There were, however, limits to T.R.'s tolerance. 'I have always maintained,' he concluded, 'that our worst revolutionaries today are those reactionaries who do not see and will not admit there is any need for change.'"

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