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In March 2003, Iraq was invaded by a U.S.-led coalition of forces mobilized by the George W. Bush administration on the grounds that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to world peace and stability. A large number of Americans remained unpersuaded by President Bush's justification for going to war, however, and thus his decision to do so was criticized before, during, and after the invasion took place. Reflecting the growing political divide in the country, another segment of the American populace held that it was unpatriotic or even treasonous to speak out against someone who was leading the United States in a time of war. Critics fired back that far from being unpatriotic, it is one's patriotic duty to oppose a president whose policies put Americans in harm's way for no defensible reason. One way they attempted to claim the higher moral ground was by citing a quote attributed to the 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt: The passage is, in fact, from an editorial written by the former president in May 1918, when the U.S. was embroiled in World War I. Make no mistake, Roosevelt wasn't against the war — quite to the contrary, he believed the U.S. had entered it too reluctantly — but he was outspokenly critical of President Woodrow Wilson's conduct of the war, writing no fewer than two syndicated editorials a week over a two-year period advocating for a stronger U.S. presence on the European war front. Roosevelt's criticisms led to accusations of disloyalty on his part, and worse. Ralph Stout, managing editor of The Kansas City Star, took note of the vehemence the attacks on Roosevelt: It was comments like these, exacerbated by suggestions from elements within the Wilson administration that Roosevelt's views ought somehow to be suppressed, that prompted him to craft this high-minded rebuttal: Nearly 100 years after this, the passage was used to defend critics not only of President George W. Bush, but of President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, as well.
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