AI breathes life into Theodore Roosevelt at new Library

A Savory Tort Photo Essay

The new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opened on July 4, in Medora, North Dakota, and I visited last week.

(All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

I'm a Theodore Roosevelt ("TR") fan, politically, socially, and otherwise, and this summer, I've immersed myself in a torrent of books and audiovisual media about the 26th President of the United States and his remarkable life. In the weeks to come, I plan to write more about TR, and North Dakota, with relevance to contemporary life, from U.S. party politics to foreign policy.

I pose with sculptor John Lopez's bronze TR (2017) at the Old Town Hall in Medora, North Dakota.

Meanwhile, I write to share, and to laud, the new TR Presidential Library (Library), especially the artificial intelligence (AI) experience. You might have seen the Library on TV already, as Lee Cowan produced a July package on the opening for CBS Sunday Morning.

The Library itself is a physical marvel. Designed by the global, Oslo-headquartered architectural firm Snøhetta, the earth-toned buildings are melded in sweeping curves into the breathtaking landscape of the North Dakota badlands.  

The Library blends into its landscape.

 

The landscape is part of the visitor experience both outside and inside the Library.

Visitors are encouraged to explore a perimeter boardwalk, where grasslands are being restored, post-construction, and the badlands buttes of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park stretch to the horizon. 

More than mere conveyance, the boardwalk around the Library is a work of exceptional craftsmanship.

Moreover, visitors can switchback their way to the top of the organic green roof of the Library itself.

Visitors summit the Library roof.

The exhibition space features a central hall with rows of displays that, through artifacts and text panels, tell the story of TR's life, from youth to higher education, to North Dakota ranching, New York politics, Washington, the Spanish-American War, the White House, Africa, and the Amazon.

The central hall exhibits are organized chronologically.

In the manner of a presidential library, the subject matter is treated with reverence, but not with total ignorance of controversy or the fallibility of the subject. For example, one display depicts TR's meeting and correspondence with Booker T. Washington, but notes that TR distanced himself from Washington publicly after the meeting went down poorly with Republicans.

Most displayed papers are replicas or on loan, as TR artifacts are collected already at other sites.
Artful exhibits convey authenticity nonetheless; replicas of papers and objects are well made.

On both sides of the hall, large, themed rooms beckon with elaborate sets re-creating periods of TR's life, such as a log cabin in the badlands, or the 1900 Republican convention in Philadelphia.

TR escaped to remote North Dakota amid the grief of losing his (first) wife and mother both on Valentine's Day, 1884.

The themed rooms feature further artifacts and information, as well as experiences for visitors, including the use of AI.

At an activity station, visitors can develop their own campaign posters in the style of the 19-aughts.

A visitor to the Library has the option of having a photograph taken at the Library entrance and carrying a bracelet with an RFID-enabled token to scan at various stations. In one experience, for example, visitors can play President and make decisions about crises the TR Administration faced. One can then see the trade-offs required to satisfy various constituencies, as approval ratings fluctuate in the high-tech choose-your-own-adventure. The Library AI constructs a cumulative record of the visitor's experiences and expressed preferences and generates a summation by email afterward.

Visitors can assess their take on the issues and cast their own votes in the 1912 election.

A recurring delight in the experience vein is a series of stations that use the visitor's likeness to place one in an AI-generated "photograph" in the context of a setting in TR's life. Visitors of all ages, including me, giddily anticipate the images, which appear on a large screen for everyone nearby to see, sometimes eliciting "wow"s, or giggles, and always delight. (Below are my own images from the Library, emailed to me after my visit.)

The crown jewel of the AI system is in the re-created White House Cabinet Room, where a holographic TR (technically, a "life-size interactive avatar") stands behind his desk and answers questions. "TR" invites visitors to come to a lectern in front of the desk, scan their bracelets, and hold down a mic button while asking a question. Along the ceiling above, both visitor and the hologram are captioned for the room.

TR himself answers visitor questions in the White House Cabinet Room.

The AI is good. I mean, very good. Frankly, I expected that the hologram would deliver only truisms and platitudes with the faltering dexterity of an animatronic in the Disney Hall of Presidents.

Not so. This TR was ebullient and on point. He answered questions with surprising depth of knowledge and even what seemed like insight. Even when seconds were required for the AI to formulate a response, the hologram delayed with smooth conversational transitions, such as "Well, let me consider that."

While I was there, one man asked what TR's greatest challenge was as President. That was a softball; TR answered with settlement of the 1902 Coal Strike, a good call. The hologram delivered, though, more than mere encyclopedic recitation, rather an insightful and stirring summary of the experience from the man who was in the room.

A woman then asked whether any of TR's descendants settled in North Dakota. I thought that question might force the AI to dodge. TR did have to "consider" for a few more seconds than for the previous question. He then answered with a capable summary of where his children moved on to, explaining how his family in subsequent generations did fan out across the country. But none, he lamented confidently, followed the old man's tracks back to North Dakota.

A young boy then went up to the lectern—courageously, I thought, with a room full of adults looking on—and eked out a simple question, "Did you like your name?" The hologram bought some time by lauding the question. Then he answered, firmly, no. He then capably explicated his nicknames in life, including "Teedie" as a boy and "Teddy" in politics, and said that he always preferred "Theodore" or "Thee." This hologram has read his David McCullough.

I asked a question, not a hard one, but one I hoped would make the AI earn its keep: "Why do you think you lost the 1912 election?" I made "think" my main verb because I wanted to spur the AI to speculate, not merely orate. I was not disappointed.

To my surprise and delight, the hologram took little time to think and became animated. TR described for the room how, yes, forming the Bull Moose Party had split Republican voters and handed the 1912 election to Woodrow Wilson. Yet, pounding a fist, TR was adamant that he had done the right thing, standing on principle for the needs of people and against the private interests that had captured the Republican party. (Sound familiar? Then you have a sense of what I hope to write more about soon.)

Inevitably, a person in the room asked TR how he would address political division in America today. Here, the AI was programmed with brakes. TR gave an eloquent answer, a dodge at last, about how it's not his place to second-guess political decision-making in a time so different from his.

But he wasn't finished. Again to my surprise, TR went on to give an impassioned description of political rifts in his own time, and how he addressed them, with salient examples, such as negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Speaking further of the higher calling to exhibit integrity in politics rather than pander to popular sentiments, his answer proved to have contemporary relevance with very little inference required. Or maybe that's just how I heard it.

I was reluctant to leave the room. AI TR was enchanting. 

I met a couple of TR impersonators while I was in Medora. Joe Wiegand's Teddy Roosevelt Show at the Town Square Showhall is superb. (Me with Wiegand's TR at left.) But on those occasions, I was always aware that I was watching and interacting with an actor, however well prepared and gifted for the role.

 

TR (Wiegand) weaved rhetoric into a brilliant portrayal at the Teddy Roosevelt Show.

At the Library, there was no actor. It was easier than I imagined to be seduced by the ghost in the machine. I left the Library feeling like I had some authentic measure of the magnetic charisma that so many of TR's contemporaries described. 

There are some other gems in the Library. There are artifacts from when TR was shot in an assassination attempt. There is a small room dedicated to the dark day when he lost his wife and mother. I don't want to say too much and spoil the adventure. The joy of visiting the Library is discovering these spaces yourself, and imagining yourself in the same historical context—with a little help from AI.

My AI Images from the Library

"Life in TR's New York"
TR was born to privilege but raised with a powerful ethic that wealth entailed an obligation of public service.

"Ranching in the Badlands"
TR sunk more than half of his liquid wealth into ranching in North Dakota. Ultimately he took a massive loss before divesting. But he never regretted the experience, saying it made him who he was, and he would not have been President but for the time he spent in North Dakota.

"Working on the Police Force"
As president of the Police Commission Board, TR walked New York City streets at night with journalist Jacob Riis to uncover and clean up dirty policing.

"Serving in the Navy"
TR did not serve in uniform in the Navy; he served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the first-term administration of President William McKinley. Later, as President, Roosevelt deployed "the Great White Fleet," a show of American power and deterrent to aggression, from 1907 to 1909.

"Joining the Rough Riders"
TR resigned his Washington post in 1898 to join the U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, "the Rough Riders," in the Spanish-American War. TR is the only President who has been awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for his heroism in Cuba.

"Leading as President"
TR's political opponents in his own party, corporate-friendly Republicans, hoped to sideline him as President McKinley's running mate on the 1900 reelection ticket. To their dismay, TR became President when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. 

My campaign poster, 19-aughts style
TR had pledged not to seek a third term, honoring the example of President Washington. He went on safari in Africa to remove himself from the political fray. But dissatisfied with the performance of his handpicked successor, President William Taft, he threw his hat in the ring for 1912, unsuccessfully.

"Journeying Into the Amazon"
Ever seeking adventure as an antidote to loss, former President Roosevelt joined an expedition in Brazil to chart a river in the Amazon, from 1913 to 1914. Suffering from a leg injury in a portage and from malaria, he very nearly died. Certainly the wear and tear on his health did him no favors. He died at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, in 1919, of pulmonary embolism, at age 60. 

French law students embrace common law; Le Havre confronts modern environmentalism, slave history

Le Havre, France

Our cultural and legal understanding of reputation and privacy are among the countless features of the social contract undergoing rapid evolution in the Trump political era, in Europe as well as the United States.

(All images by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with no claim to underlying content.) 

Once a fringe area of tort law to which most new lawyers had no exposure at all in law school, defamation and privacy have taken center stage in society, in part thanks to their weaponization in polarized politics and popular culture. Hulk Hogan famously shut down Gawker with a multi-pronged privacy suit masking a billionaire's vendetta (Holiday). Melania Trump sued a blogger and the Daily Mail for falsely claiming she worked as a high-end escort (DiBenedetto). And Donald Trump, well, Donald Trump... inter alia, won a fee award and suffered a massive loss, not over sexual relationships as much as deceptions that ensued.

Faculty of International Affairs, University of Le Havre

Last week, I had the great privilege to teach a one-credit course on American litigation over defamation and privacy to undergraduate law students at the University of Le Havre in the Normandy region of France. You can check out the course and course materials at the blogspot, Litigating Reputation in America. I'll leave the downloadable documents in place for the duration of summer 2026 (Perma.cc for later review).

"Litigating Reputation in America" course site

I centered the class on the fascinating transnational defamation civil suit that French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron are prosecuting in Delaware against American podcaster Candace Owens. The case arises from a host of Owens's sensationalist assertions, especially that Brigitte Macron was born a man. A hearing on a motion to dismiss, on jurisdictional grounds only, is scheduled for June 22.

Notwithstanding the seemingly readily disprovable falsity and outrageousness of the assertions at issue, the Macrons face an uphill battle in U.S. courts. Kalshi thinks they'll win (63.7% presently). But the smart money in American defamation litigation is never on the plaintiff. Cf. Tucker Carlson's successful defense against Karen McDougal on grounds, more or less, that no one takes Carlson seriously, so his outrageous assertions could have done no harm.

Meanwhile, in January, a French criminal court convicted 10 defendants of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron with the born-a-man claim (CNS). The contrast between an uphill civil suit in the States and criminal prosecutions in Paris fairly indicates a profound divergence in how social, economic, and political cultures in the United States and Europe, especially in France, respectively value reputation and free speech, and how law and process accordingly balance the two.

In an intensive 15 classroom hours, 24 Le Havre students learned the fundamentals of defamation and privacy torts and engaged with 11 contemporary, ripped-from-the-reporter case studies I prepared for them. The students explored the development of defamation and privacy litigation from client counseling to discovery and dispositive motions, alongside key rules of civil procedure. They argued Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss and negotiated settlements, then rounded out the week with a two-hour final exam.

Civil-law law books, including obligations, at La Galerne Bookstore, Le Havre

I've been teaching American law modules to English-as-a-second-language law students in Europe for 20 years, and never have I seen students perform so well. They embraced the rough-and-tumble of the American adversarial model, while remaining sensitive to issues of professionalism and public policy. True to European thinking, they evinced skepticism of corporate-protective defense doctrines and absolutist free speech claims. They readily adapted their civil-law-trained thinking to precedent-driven common law and analogical argument.

It happened that the well circulated American news story dropped while I was in France, as Futurism put it, "College Professors Say Incoming Students No Longer Understand Middle School Math and Science." I commented on some of my friend chats that the same surely is true for English and arts; it's just harder to quantify.

When I started teaching legal writing in the late 1990s, the challenge was to get students to pay attention to their choices of subjects and verbs. Now many students don't even know what I mean when I say "subject" and "verb." An aside: Shout out to my own relentless K12 grammar instructors: Sharon Reuwer, who in elementary school literally hit me on the head with a book—you could do that back then—until I got my sentence diagramming right; and to Dr. Barbara Dezmon, who in middle school initiated me in language as forensic art, more than mere mechanics.

So as my undergraduate French students dissected their case studies, synthesizing argument from facts and points of law, I could not help but observe, and wonder why, they delivered work product more adeptly than I can expect from most first-year graduate students in the United States. That's not to impugn my home students' potential, nor to generalize unfairly, nor to disrespect those who put in the work and rise to the occasion, but only to fear that too many Americans are inexcusably ill served by their K16 preparation.

Haropa Port offices, Le Havre

I am deeply indebted to the organizing and teaching faculty of the Le Havre program. Professor Baptiste Allard is the driving force behind the program at the University of Le Havre Faculty of International Affairs, along with his Le Havre collegaue, Professor Pierre Capelle. The students are now in week two of the four-week program, in a comparative study of constitutional and administrative law with Professor Akram Faizer of the Duncan School of Law at Lincoln Memorial University.

In the coming weeks, the French students will further explore American law and legal skills with Professor Christine E. Cerniglia, director of clinical and experiential legal education at Stetson Law, and Professor Melanie Reid, associate dean of faculty at the Duncan School of Law. Professors Cerniglia and Reid aim to develop an ongoing relationship with Le Havre that will see American students participating, too, to exchange learning with their French counterparts.

Catène de containers (2017),
a prominent contemporary sculpture by Vincent Ganivet;
behind: post-war apartments in the brutalist architectural style of Auguste Perret

I had some time in Le Havre for tourism, which afforded me the opportunity to explore some scholarly interests in areas including environmental law and the legal history of human rights and the transatlantic slave trade.

Professor Allard is my partner on the environmental law team of the Global Law Classroom, a project born of Professor Reid's ingenuity. I have learned volumes from Professor Allard about the role of global shipping and sea transportation in global environmental law and climate change. Admittedly, there are times when the ins and outs of EU shipping regulations make my eyelids droop. But in Le Havre, I took a boat tour of Haropa Port, and what I saw there charged the subject with a new vitality for me.

Entrance to Port of Le Havre

I've seen many commercial ports in the world, but never so close, gliding on a small passenger boat through an intracoastal waterway alongside massive tankers and container ships. The Port of Le Havre is the largest container port in France, with three terminals, and also receives world-class cruise liners. Oil is the port's number one cargo commodity, implicating the port in contemporary geopolitics. Seeing the scale of the operation, it's impossible not to wonder at humanity's ability to transform a natural landscape to commercial ends, and also to be fretful over environmental risks and consequences.

Kriti Journey, a crude oil tranker, flagged Marshall Islands

Hafnia Nanjing, an oil and chemical tanker, flagged Singapore

 

Container loading

Almost as intriguing as the physical operations of the port are its works in communications and public relations. The boat tour I took and the port's public exhibition center are awash with boastful facts. There also are brochures and special exhibition days that feature recent and upcoming green initiatives at the port. That's good, of course. Yet for the touristic observer such as me, even unusually informed as I am, it's impossible casually to disentangle fact and propaganda, much less to interrogate the presentation for greenwashing.

Vole au Vent, a heavy-lift, self-elevating, jack-up installation vessel, flagged Luxembourg,
loading locally manufactured wind turbines for off-shore destinations

A register of slave transactions,
Maison de l'armateur

The Port of Le Havre also figures in the history of slavery. People from Africa were trafficked through Le Havre, part of the triangular route, to French colonies in the Americas. Le Havre was the imputed port of origin for more than 450 slave voyages trafficking at least 142,341 persons from 1571 to 1848, according to data at Slave Voyages

Maison de l'armateur

. A memorial plaque in "the slave streets of Le Havre" remembers 90,000 trafficked persons. Either way, incredibly, Le Havre was only the third largest slave port in France, where an estimated 1.38 million people were embarked for enslavement.

"Closet" celebrating accomplished
free persons of color,
Maison de l'armateur

The Le Havre Ship Owner's House, or Maison de l'armateur, is a preserved 18th century residence that showcases the opulent lifestyle of the successful merchant of the time. That lifestyle was built on a range of commodities, slavery included. Yet Africans who passed through Le Havre, including those who remained and were enslaved before definitive abolition in France in 1848, were omitted from patriotic historical narratives—whitewashing.

Socially and legally, modern France has dedicated itself peculiarly, present populist inclinations notwithstanding, to memory initiatives, that is, the compulsory remembrance of historical wrongs. The criminalization of Holocaust denial is probably the most often cited example of "French memory laws." But brutal colonialism and the slave trade figure in too.

Accordingly seeking to balance its presentation, the Ship Owner's House presently features a fascinating tandem exhibition, Reminiscences: Phantoms of Slavery (May 8 to Sept. 20, 2026). The exhibition is not set aside in a single space, the usual museum M.O.; rather, the African story is told right alongside the ordinary exhibition with the juxtaposition of radically differently themed art and information. The juxtaposition is often clever, for example, haunting the vestibule of a genteel bedroom with an amber glow behind silhouettes of African celebrants.

Émile Loubon, Le Port du Havre au XIXe siècle (1843),
with museum tags showing offloaded goods

Diorama depicting post-colonial reparations rally, Maison de l'armateur

Acerbic art characterizing a black stain on whitewashed history, Maison de l'armateur

There's plenty in Le Havre to stimulate the mind, not to mention the palate, of the law student and law professor. I hope the students who endured my lessons got something worthwhile from the week, if I dare not hope they learned as much as I did.

I offer my sincere gratitude to the students and staff at Le Havre, to Professors Allard and Capelle, as well as Professor Allard's husband for his hospitality, and to Professors Cerniglia, Faizer, and Reid, as well as Professor Cerniglia's partner, for their generous friendship and collegiality.

Jusqu’au Bout du Monde (2018) by Fabien Mérelle, Port of Le Havre; St. Joseph's Church, behind

Bhutan turns tourism into 'Gross National Happiness'

At the Takin Preserve: Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay
with me and visitors from the United Kingdom and United States.

Little more than a half century ago, the Kingdom of Bhutan was walled off to the world.

Today, tourists are welcome, but with strict controls that aim to leverage social and economic development.

Earlier this month, I traveled to Bhutan and had the privilege of meeting the prime minister, the Hon. Tshering Tobgay. The PM was visiting the Motithang Royal Takin Preserve in Bhutan, located just outside the capital, Thimphu.

Takin calf at the preserve.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The takin, by the way, is a large mammal native to the Himalayas, a genetic relative of sheep. One subspecies of takin is specific to Bhutan and is revered as the national animal. The preserve provides a sanctuary for the massive herbivores, thus also protecting the environment from their destructive appetite.

Tobgay was not at the preserve for a refresher on Bhutanese fauna; rather, the PM was escorting the 2025-appointed American ambassador to India and special envoy for south and central Asia, Sergio Gor, on a touristic and diplomatic visit. Gor was reciprocating a Tobgay visit to the United States in December.

Tobgay and Gor, at the PM's right, feed a takin.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

A longtime Bhutanese politician, Tobgay is American educated. He earned a bachelor's in mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1980s and then a master's in public administration at the Harvard Kennedy School in the 20-aughts. He published a book in English last year: Enlightened Leadership: Inside Bhutan's Inspiring Transition from Monarchy to Democracy (inset below).

Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy, though still leans heavily on the monarchy part of the description. The crown initiated a policy of democratization in 1952. A first national assembly was appointed the following year and given the power to impeach the monarch. Today, the king formally appoints the prime minister, though in practice the appointee is elected by the legislature. Similarly, final decisions of the Supreme Court formally are referred to the crown for approval.

Supreme Court of Bhutan, Thimphu.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

In modern international law, Bhutan is renowned for its commitment to "Gross National Happiness" (GNH), a national policy priority introduced in the 1970s. A holistic measure inspired by Buddhism and informed by factors such as health, education, and living standards, GNH has been embraced conceptually by the international community—Bhutan joined the United Nations in 1971—as an alternative to economic productivity, the conventional measure of a country's success. One Bhutanese host explained to me that GNH does not mean every person is happy; rather, GNH describes the aims that should justify national policy-making.

Bhutan opened to foreign tourism only in 1974 and allowed television and the internet only in 1999. It still guards its borders jealously, allowing a limited number of tourists who must book through state-authorized agents and pay a US$100-per-day sustainable development fee. When I visited, my visa was arranged wholly by the tour service I used.

However restrictive Bhutan's social and political conservatism, I could not argue with the results I saw on the ground. People I met in Bhutan expressed affection for the king and queen, often noting that the royal family lives in a modest home and champions public education. Schoolchildren I happened upon in Thimphu were uniformed and polite, while also cheerful and playful, and they spoke English confidently.

Buddha Dordenma, visible from Thimphu center.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The sustainable development fee seems to be well reinvested in infrastructure, such as paved roads, and touristic sites, such as the 177-foot Buddha Dordenma statue, completed in 2015, that towers over Thimphu. A travel companion told me that the winding rural roads we traveled were unpaved when he visited a couple of decades ago. In literacy and life expectancy, Bhutan significantly outpaces its cohort in the "medium" range of the U.N. human development scale.

Thimphu, capital of Bhutan.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Insofar as I heard any gripe about government policy from the Bhutanese, it was that high-quality healthcare remains elusive, especially in the countryside. Nevertheless, when an American travel companion asked my guide about the cost of treatment after the guide mentioned a family member's cancer, the guide narrowed her brow in puzzlement. Then she shook her head, understanding the question, and said, "free, of course."

Rinpung Dzong, or "Paro Fort," a 15th-century monastery
and top tourist destination, in Paro, Bhutan's third-largest city.
Owned by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Thinking over what we had seen, some of my travel companions wondered aloud whether monarchy might not be so undemocratic after all. That struck me as curious after what I heard about some Nepali youth protestors speaking wistfully of monarchy there. Invariably upon such musings, an American, sometimes me, would say that the efficacy of monarchy might depend a bit too much on who is wearing the crown.

The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Bhutan, thus Ambassador Gor's visit as special regional envoy. Gor has some personal connection to, well, at least the Asian continent. He was born in Uzbekistan—"Gor" is a chosen truncation of Gorokhovsky—and migrated with his family to the United States, via Malta. He graduated from secondary school in Los Angeles.

Amb. Gor

How did an L.A. immigrant wind up with an ambassadorship in the Trump administration? Gor has been involved in Republican politics since his post-secondary days at George Washington University. His recent ambassadorial qualifications include fundraising for President Trump and starting a Trump-reverent book publishing company with Donald Trump, Jr.

After the 2024 election, the President appointed Gor to head personnel appointments. President Trump later credited his "great friend" Gor with "nearly 4,000" party-loyal hires in the new administration. Presumably Gor himself included.