A Gift From the Ramparts of Capital...

Of the four US presidents who have been given a Nobel Prize--Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama--the one who's shown the cleanest pair of heels when it comes to escaping the world's guffaws for the absurdity of the award is Jimmy Carter.

It's easy to throw mud at TR. The excuse for his prize, awarded in 1906, was his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War. But what the committee of those worthy Norwegians was actually saying was that when it comes to giving a US president the peace prize, the bar has to be set awfully low. After all, TR was fresh from sponsorship of the Spanish-American War and ardent bloodletting in the Philippines.

He accepted the prize not long after he'd displayed his boundless compassion for humanity by sponsoring an exhibition of Filipino "monkey men" in the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair as "the missing link" in the evolution of man from ape to Aryan, and thus in sore need of assimilation, forcible if necessary, to the American way. On receipt of the prize, Roosevelt promptly began planning the dispatch of the Great White Fleet (sixteen Navy battleships of the Atlantic Fleet) on a worldwide tour to display Uncle Sam's imperial credentials.

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