President Obama delivered his Osawatomie speech, according to aides, because he wanted to associate himself with the rhetorical and ideological significance of Teddy Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" address at the same Kansas location in 1910. It's odd enough that Obama would associate his policies with a speech that defined a failed political movement -- the Bull Moose Party -- but there is something else about Osawatomie County that makes it a strange locale for a presidential address ostensibly intended to encourage greater American unity. This was the place in Kansas that was headquarters for John Brown, the murderous radical who obsessed throughout his life about inciting a race war he believed would end slavery in the South.