Please explain just what this term means. I've herad it ascribed to Teddy Roosevelt, but have never seen it explained in terms I could fully wrap my head around.

Asa, does this Wikipedia article help? I don't know about the phrase myself, but it sounds like being of sufficiently high rank allows one to speak out about anything. I thought then that the leader could "bully" the public by making them listen to him. However, from the Wikipedia article, it sounds like Roosevelt used "bully" to mean "superb" or "wonderful," and "bully" is not associated to the definition meaning "harrasser."