# Which Leader of Your Country do you Feel Most Embarrassed By? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811 "2014-12-10T01:58:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/81 "2014-12-18T23:57:41Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > George W. Bush. Torture, war on false premises, and numerous civil rights violations on a huge scale easily outclass the misdeeds of any other American politician in history. Yep, the Shrub. Worst President in memory. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/82 "2014-12-19T00:24:57Z")
Vincent Siew is one of the more embarrassing politicians of Taiwan. But if Sean Lien had been elected of Taipei, he would have been by far the most embarrassing politician of the island. Rich, out of touch, full of himself, I have a hard time seeing how he would ever have made a good mayor. I very much dislike President Ma Ying-Jeou, but he’s not embarrassing, he just has a very destructive agenda - destructive to Taiwan, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/83 "2014-12-19T03:13:04Z")
> [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](#): > > Harding was a crook. Teapot dome and all that. Incorrect. Harding himself was honest, but he had astonishingly poor judgment in choosing his associates. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/84 "2014-12-19T05:41:07Z")
G-Dubya: Man, I hated, _ **hated** _ him back in his day. After years now, and seeing him at least trying to remain presidential I’ve softened a bit. I still think most of his decisions were terrible and led to enormous suffering from innocent people, but the real monster was his VP, Dick Cheney. Dubya at least still tries to be presidential (in a post-presidential way) Cheney, on doubling down on every recent torture accusation thrown at him, is pure evil. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/85 "2014-12-19T11:24:08Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I’m impressed with the way in which posters are continuing to ignore the OP’s parameters for the thread, which he has stated repeatedly. This wasn’t supposed to be about policies, politics, or leadership. The basic question is along the lines of “which leader seemed most like a bumbling idiot while engaged in things other than official duties?” not “which leader steered the country into its darkest days with evil policies and nonexistent leadership?”. > > This is why we can’t have nice things. Agreed. Which is why GWB still counts. I’m not American, so wouldn’t nominate him myself, and TBH I can’t think of any UK leaders since WWII that have been _embarrassing_. Bad, yes (Thatcher far more than anyone else), embarrassing no. The closest I can come is Prince Phillip, who is famous for his gaffes, but he’s not an actual head of state and I doubt very much that his wife (who has little real power anyway) listens to him in anything political. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/86 "2014-12-20T20:44:16Z")
My feelings for Dubya have been documented here on the Dope. Absolute embarrassment. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/87 "2014-12-21T03:15:13Z")
For Canada, at least recently, I would say [Brian Mulroney](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Mulroney). Not a terrible PM, but had a grossly inflated sense of privilege and just came across as personally sleazy. Even if there might be no real basis for the various corruption charges levied against him, he certainly skated very close to the edge in some of the cases. He also seemed to have chosen more than the usual number of ministers who subsequently disgraced themselves. He ended up widely disliked for both his personal and his political actions, which was probably the main cause of his resignation as leader and his party being reduced from being the government to a two-MP rump in the subsequent election. Mackenzie-King might be a contender, except that most of the embarrassing stuff about his strange private life didn’t become public until after his death. ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/88 "2014-12-21T04:48:21Z")
Mackenzie-King’s dog at least had some good policy ideas, and if you don’t speak French and only listen to him speaking in French so you don’t understand anything he’s saying you can enjoy Mulroney’s excellent speaking voice. Trudeau was enough of a Magnificent Bastard to get away with his stuff, so for the purposes of the thread I think we are left with Diefenbaker and Chretien. Chretien has the benefit of speaking neither official language and his hands-on approach to personal security, but Dief actually took himself seriously. Joe Clark gets a sympathy vote, having to face a press gallery that had survived Trudeau. If we are going to ignore the OP and just go for the worst one, I am hard pressed to find anyone to compare to the current dead eyed “psycho Mr. Rogers” looking motherfucker. Good thing we don’t need science or census data or a competent civil service or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/89 "2014-12-24T23:31:01Z")
> [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](#): > > Woodrow Wilson was a racist and a conniver who got the US into WWI to keep JP Morgan’s loans to Britain and France from going bad. Probably set the stage for the disaster in Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazis. The harsh peace of Versailles happened _in spite_ of Wilson who wanted genuine reconciliation while the League was weakened by domestic opposition to Wilson’s proposal for America to enter it. > [@](#): > > Harry Truman, a narrow reactionary politician who did his best to reverse FDRs course. Started the Cold War along with Winston Churchill. Truman wasn’t a reactionary at all (unless you are Henry Wallace who thought not being a Soviet dupe meant you were a reactionary) and continued FDR’s domestic New Deal legacy while going further than his former boss in some respects (ie desegregating the military). The Cold War, obviously, was a necessary response to Stalinist aggression. Well anyways, I suppose, in recent times our most embarassing President undoubtedly has been George W. Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/90 "2014-12-26T22:12:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*race\_to\_the\_bottom > \*\* > Ronald Reagan. The morning in America man. Got the ball really rolling downhill for the middle class. Front man par excellence. A true ignoramus. PR mouthpiece for the most reactionary political elements in the US. Helped Saddam Hussein kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians. > > Bush the Elder. Probably one of the more competent presidents. Attacked the above mentioned Saddam when he thought he had the green light from the US to settle affairs with Kuwait. > Bill Clinton. A real slimy politician. Only elected because Ross Perot siphoned off conservative votes. Zero principles; only calculations. Squeezed the people of Iraq to death. Fine tuned the practice of selling out his “base”. Didn’t have a pot to piss in when he became president and is now worth a cool 55 mil. > > Bush the younger. Defended Texas airspace during the Vietnam War. Elected by the Supreme Court after ballot fraud in Florida. Painted his war veteran opponent as a unreliable peacenik. Lied to get the US into the Iraq and Afghan wars. > > Barack Obama. A great chess move by the chess masters. A “Black” President, but only as deep as his paint job, to keep the Black people and the left in place. Continued and extended the national security state. Sold out health care reform activists, working people, and says nothing that will offend the power structure. Another one without a pisspot when he started out an is not worth about $7 million, but he is just getting started. I agree with pretty much all of this. Especially the bit about Bush the elder being a competent Prexy. He never got the credit he deserved. Why so many people miss the Obama-as-containment-strategy angle is beyond me. It’s so obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811/91 "2014-12-28T17:47:19Z")
GWB. I’m only counting people who were UK PM until 1996 or POTUS from then until now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-leader-of-your-country-do-you-feel-most-embarrassed-by/706811.md?page=4)