The Bully Pulpit

This was the second Goodwin book I had read and whilst I did not enjoy The Bully Pulpit as much as I did her book on Abraham Lincoln ‘Team of Rivals', this book was still an incredible insight into American history and power.

Much like Goodwin's assessment of Lincoln cabinet members revealed greater Lincoln's genius more than a biography could, an assessment of the journalistic golden age gave incredible insight into Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. I think this choice is so crucial because of what I have learned about Roosevelt's style. The best example of this was his dealings with the coal strikes.
As the disruption to the economy initially led to public favor to the mine operators, Teddy could not decisively act to empower the strikers as he would not have popular support. Thus, he waited several months to begin meditation. After the transcript of mediation revealed the greed of the mine operators shifted sentiment towards the striker's favour, Teddy (knowing the operators would never broker a deal with him as mediator), allowed JP Morgan to finalize the terms. Thus, his ‘walk softly with a big stick' was an incredible method of striking hard at opportune times. He was a rough rider, a fighter.

Taft on the other hand had been displayed as having a less revolutionary style. He certainly bolstered one of the most incredible resumes in history, acting as both governor-general of Cuba and the Phillipines, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and President. Much better suited to being a justice, he acted in a way through which he assumed that if he did good work for the people, credit would follow. Unfortunately, as many great presidents would know, in public office this is rarely the case.

Yet both of these men's lives and impacts would have fallen short of an audiobook justifying 38 hours of listening had it not been for the Mcluer magazine. I had known little of the golden age of investigative journalism outside of Ida Tarbell expose's on Rockefeller.

The way Goodwin accounts the 1912 presidential election was mostly well written. Extracts of speeches, newspapers, and dairy entries paint a compelling narrative that is unfortunately repetitive at points.

I was hoping to learn more about Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft as people. I did get insights into their personalities through this book, but it was more focused (as the title implies) on how both men used the press to achieve goals, and political battles. It did not hold my interest as well as I would have hoped, though I can't point to any flaw in the writing. Perhaps it just wasn't a topic as interesting to me as I would have thought it would be.