04-28-2012, 12:58 PM
|
 |
Moderator
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: East Of Eden
Gender: 
Posts: 18,735
Thanks: 16,303
Thanked 11,066 Times in 7,305 Posts
|
|
Re: Biden: 'The President Has a Big Stick'
10 things about ‘that big stick
Quote:
Vice President Joe Biden raised eyebrows Thursday when he told a crowd in New York City, “I promise you the president has that big stick. I promise you.”
It was an allusion to Teddy Roosevelt’s famous foreign-policy maxim, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” which the 26th president popularized in a speech delivered in 1901. Although the former president claimed the phrase was West African in origin, this was never verified.
But here are 10 things we do know about big sticks, including other pols who’ve used — and sometimes mangled — the famous phrase:
1. The 1900 letter in which Roosevelt first used the phrase was put up for sale in April 2007, with an asking price of $200,000.
2. “I want to carry the big stick,” Mitt Romney said during a June 2007 campaign stop in Iowa. “I hope I don’t have to use it, but I want to make sure we have it so that people understand we are a nation of strength.”
3. The “big stick bandit” went viral last year after his robbery of a Virginia convenience store — with, yes, a big stick — was caught on surveillance video.
4. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stumbled and somewhat misquoted Teddy’s line in an October 2008 presidential debate with Barack Obama: “My hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say, walk softly — talk softly, but carry a big stick.”
5. The “Big Stick Surfing Association” in Santa Cruz, Calif., hosts the annual Logjam, an “old boards, no cords” surfing competition.
6. Bob Miller, owner of the since-closed Balkan Grill near the White House, reportedly used to give President Clinton the following advice on Bosnia: “Remain tough, carry a big stick and tell the Serbs if they don’t stop picking on U.N. peacekeepers the president will send Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Paris.”
7. “Big Stick” is the name of an alternative indie band best known (if at all) for their 1986 debut EP, “Drag Racing.”
8. In Nov. 2007, while running for president, New York Republican Rudy Giuliani said that if elected, his approach to foreign policy would be to “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
9. Big Stick No. 141 is a rural municipality in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
10. “I will walk tall and carry a big stick,”said Irvine, Calif., Mayor Christina Shea when she was elected in 1996. “That’ll be my motto. Like Theodore Roosevelt.”
Read more: 10 things about ?that big stick? - Tim Mak - POLITICO.com
|
So now we know the rest of the story.. 
|
Linear Mode
