# The best and worst political leaders in the world?



## Rhisiart (Jul 21, 2006)

*+ve*: Dr Manmohan Singh (India), Vladimar Putin (Russia), Jacque Chirac (OK,  just about scrapes through), Angela Merkel (Germany), Groucho Marx (deceased)

*-ve*: George W Bush, Tony Blair, i.e. poodle to Dubya vis a vis recent microphone recording in St Petersburg (i.e. "Yo Blair, wots up?"), Ta Mok (deceased - total feckin psycho, so good riddance), John Bolton (Us Ambassador to the UN, just slightly right of Pol Pot).


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## adambyte (Jul 22, 2006)

Heheh. Agreed. I like this thread already....

best: John Lennon, Mahatma Ghandi, Bill Clinton (socially liberal, fiscally conservative... please disregard the intern under the desk), FDR (New Deal kicks ass)

And... Excuse my ignorance, but what did Jacque Chirac do that was so spiffy?


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## simbalala (Jul 22, 2006)

> The Ugly Truth: Our President is an Imbecile
> 
> You know it, I know it and the American people know it. But everyone is afraid to say it. They say it privately, but people are afraid of saying it publicly because you will be branded as a liberal, elite, intellectual snob. But believe me, you don't have to be an intellectual to see how painfully stupid our president is.
> 
> ...



The Ugly Truth: Our President is an Imbecile


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## ora (Jul 22, 2006)

Wow! How do you have Putin as +ve? The guy is as scary as they come, and the rumours are he cut his teeth  for the KGB 'removing dissidents' in many parts of the former USSR. Don't think his anti iraq war etc stance comes from some smily happy place. Plus, I'm not big Blair fan but he's better than what preceded him in the UK, and personally I think he's been screwed by Bush rather badly, not that I'd ever vote for him.


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## reed (Jul 22, 2006)

Living or dead political leaders?

1st shot (living):

Best: Nelson Mandela
Worst: GW Bush, Silvo Berlusconi, Tony (the phony) Blair, any dictator you can think of.


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## fryke (Jul 22, 2006)

Best: Cicero. From then on, it went down, I guess.
Worst: Not born yet.


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## Rhisiart (Jul 24, 2006)

adambyte said:


> Heheh. Agreed. I like this thread already....
> 
> best: John Lennon, Mahatma Ghandi, Bill Clinton (socially liberal, fiscally conservative... please disregard the intern under the desk), FDR (New Deal kicks ass)
> 
> And... Excuse my ignorance, but what did Jacque Chirac do that was so spiffy?


Cripes! I forgot Ghandhi and Clinton (in the +ve list of course). Chirac ... well, you may have a point.



fryke said:


> Best: Cicero. From then on, it went down, I guess.
> Worst: Not born yet.


Cicero's motto was '_To always be the best and over top the rest_'. Nothing much has changed then.


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## fryke (Jul 24, 2006)

Well the question, of course, would be what one considers to "be good", rhisiart.


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## Rhisiart (Jul 24, 2006)

fryke said:


> Well the question, of course, would be what one considers to "be good", rhisiart.


Yes, good point. 

I tend to judge leaders by a simple benchmark: Do their strengths outweigh their weaknesses?

Some are easy to benchmark by this criteria, e.g. Ghandi (good), Stalin (bad). Others are more complex.


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## Rhisiart (Jul 24, 2006)

P.S. My all time favourite political put down:

Lady Aston to Churchill:

If I were your wife, I would put arsenic in your coffee".

Reply from Churchill:

If I were your husband, I would do it myself".


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## reed (Jul 24, 2006)

rhisiart said:


> P.S. My all time favourite political put down:
> 
> Lady Aston to Churchill:
> 
> ...



I always heard this version:

Lady Aston:
"Winston if I was married to you I'd put poision in your tea"

Churchill: "If I was married to you I'd drink it."



Charles de Gaulle had a few gems too: "Je veut mettre Angleterre toute nue!"

Or... How to govern a country with 292 (I forget the exact figure) sorts of cheeses.

Or, "I am not the State, but almost!"


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## Rhisiart (Jul 25, 2006)

reed said:


> I always heard this version:
> 
> Lady Aston:
> "Winston if I was married to you I'd put poision in your tea"
> ...


Yes, that's the correct version. I couldn't quite remember it exactly.

I also liked it when Churchill described Stanley Baldwin as an epileptic corpse.


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## hawki18 (Jul 26, 2006)

Jacque Chirac how can he be on anyones good list when he sold nuclear tech to the middle east.!!!!!!!


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## adambyte (Jul 26, 2006)

Mmm... yeah.... let's add anybody who has anything to do with the advancement of nuclear technologies of any sort.... that's dangerous crap, not only as weapons, but also for "energy."


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## Lt Major Burns (Jul 26, 2006)

Putin appears to be rectifying the 'mistakes' that Yeltsin made in his drunken stupor.  ie Russian Democracy.  in the last 6 years, putin has had a hand in buying back most of russias industry.  through faceless corporations, the russian government now owns 80% of the industry there again.  everyone works for the state now, pretty much.  Putin is dangerous.  he's rebuilding a broken country quite 'efficiently', as it were.


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## Lt Major Burns (Jul 26, 2006)

adambyte said:


> Mmm... yeah.... let's add anybody who has anything to do with the advancement of nuclear technologies of any sort.... that's dangerous crap, not only as weapons, but also for "energy."



that's absolute crap.

> "Iran, you can't have nuclear energy. you can use, er, coal, like everybody else"

>> "but you use nuclear energy"

> "yeah but that's because we're better than you"

>> "how?"

> "um... look, just use coal, ok?"


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## reed (Jul 26, 2006)

Who DIDN'T sell nuclear technology and other dangerous stuff in this region? Remember Donald Rumsfeld making a deal with Saddam Hussien during the Iraq/Iran War? Classic handshake photo.

Moving on. I think our judgement of political leaders is very subjective.That is normal. But considering the historical context....where the debate will go on long after we are gone, we have to live with those who run our lives at this very moment."Vast program" as Charles de Gaulle once said.
  Lincoln, for me, is numero uno...but he is long dead. Like his epoch. History will tell us who was good and/or bad. One thing is sure there will never be a Federal day off for any US President since Lincoln or Washington.And they were far from perfect.


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## fryke (Jul 26, 2006)

You bring up an important point here... While a few citizens might remember some of their countries' past political personnel, I guess most presidents all over the world are forgotten in the world rather sooner than later. Vice-presidents, ministers etc.? Even more quickly. Only a few leave a serious mark in the world's history. And I'd like to see a very simple statistic some day: Are more "baddies" or "goodies" remembered? Because personally, I think that it's mostly the bad guys that are remembered (outside of their countries, I mean).
And then, of course, there's a focus problem. I think some of the best political leaders in the world are those whose names no-one remembers, maybe not even their people. Because their country lived a "boring" life while they ruled. And that's quite often a _good_ sign, isn't it. I mean: No wars, no revolutions, no terrorist attacks, no strikes whatsoever? Boring, of course, but actually the state most people would like the country they live in to be. I wish there was a famous quote of a president stepping down saying: "Nothing happened. I'm glad."  I'm still impressed by terms like "Pax Augusta" (Rome was at peace for ca. 200 years after Augustus "created" that peace.). Of course some might say that the long period of peace was also at fault for Roman decadence, which eventually led to Rome's fall... Still I think that it should be a political leader's main goal to create a boring time for his/her country.


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## adambyte (Jul 26, 2006)

Lt Major Burns said:


> that's absolute crap



It is NOT absolute crap. ANYbody who encourages the manufacture of such dangerous materials is a bad leader.... be they American, Arab, or from the planet Zorg.... 

Well... I suppose if the Zorgians figured out a way to safely handle the waste material, then I suppose it would be okay...


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## ApeintheShell (Aug 2, 2006)

Good: Jesus Christ
Bad: All the political leaders past and present

Good: Meat
Bad: Tofu

Good: Who's the Boss
Bad: Who wants to be a millionaire

Good: Mac OS 7.5
Very Bad: Windows 95


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## Qion (Aug 2, 2006)

I wouldn't exactly say Jesus Christ was the best _political_ leader whom lived. I would apply a similar mindset to Ghandi. No matter how religiously or philosophically earth-shaking these two figures have been, I'd rather politicize a figurehead than a theological leader. >prepares to be flamed<

That said, I think Bush has recieved more than his share of flaming. I don't like the guy, I don't agree with all his decisions, and what he did with Katrina was pukable, but he still _is_ the president, and with anybody in that position, he's a hell of a lot more prone to criticism than your average bear. 

I appoint the best -personally and subjectively favorite- leader to be Clinton. The worst -personally and subjectively worst- leader was Hitler.

Fryke has a great point. Great leaders don't necessarily sprout from grandiose battles and wars and deals with other nations, but purely from allowing nothing to happen at all. Bloody revolutions are, in my mind, a hell of a lot worse than compromise whether my side won or lost.

Edit: ApeintheShell, I figure you weren't comparing Jesus Christ to political leaders as a political leader, but as something higher and grander than politics itself. Apologies if my argument missed your point.


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## reed (Aug 18, 2006)

Thanks to Moltke and the Kaiser, Europe and the World, was never the same. Oui ou non?

An aside:  Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Moses and all other religious mystics have had their part to play as well. But that is a looooong story. In fact a story that nobody seems to know the final chapter. Nor wants to know. Too complicated and very, very dangerous.


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