The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them!

najmelliw wrote:

He, of course, ranks high as well. The reason I ranked Sistani high is for the same grounds ehbeth ranked him high...

you can't imagine how it startled me to read this ... before I'd started the exercise Shocked

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1. Putin
2. Chavez
3. Mandela
4. Merkel
5. Chirac
6. Zapatero
7. Hillary Clinton
8. Kerry
9. Gadaffi
10. Berlusconi
11. Blair
12. Kofi Annan
13. Bush

I left out the ones I don't have a clear impression about.

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I think he was referring to eBrown, eBeth - eThis, eThat, who can tell ;-)

Ellinas, and I thought you were a Berlusconi fan!

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Re: The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them

Havel
Merkel
al-Sistani
Kofi Annan
Obama
Mandela
Chirac
Kerry
Berlusconi
Blair
Hillary Clinton
McCain
Bush
Chavez
Putin
Hu Jintao
Gadaffi

the first 3 groupings - I've got some comfort level with

the fourth grouping - dis-ease with all of them, with levels that vary - but the ranking reflects today's look at them

the fifth group - my sense of them isn't positive, it would take a lot of information to turn it around

the final group - I just can't squint enough to see past the problems with them

~~~~~~~

Other than the last two groupings, I can sort of believe they all mean well.

The fifth group, I think, is the one where I get a great sense of ends justifying means - and that is what makes me uneasy. Perhaps they should be my bottom group - I don't trust them to be good or bad. I trust them to follow their own political self-interest (which more often than not has matched my own, but ...)

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Re: The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them

McGentrix wrote:

Havel
Gadaffi

Havel 19th? I'm really surprised.

I thought everyone liked him-why the low ranking?

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Given the nature of political life, I had a hard time making out this list.

I found it much easier to approach it by asking, "Rank these in order of people whom you wouldn't trust a friggin' thing they say", then reversed the order. The list went quickly.

I left out some people with whom I am not that familiar, but I included most of the names.

1. Mandela
2. Kerry
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Kofi Annan
5. Obama
6. Havel
7. McCain
8. Chavez
9. Chirac
10. al-Sistani
11. Putin
12. Berlusconi
13. Blair
14. Bush
15. Gaddafi

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Re: The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them
Hmm.

I really like ehBeth's list -- the groupings and her reasoning. (Plus, she and I seem to have approximately the same glasses these days, but that's neither here nor there.)

I'm going to separate my list into people I feel like I know enough about to rank, and those that I don't, though.

1. Obama
2. Mandela
3. Annan
4. Havel
5. Kerry
6. Hillary Clinton
7. Chirac
8. Blair
9. McCain
10. Putin
11. Bush
12. Gaddafi

Don't know enough about:

Zapatero
Merkel (though I'm to the trusting side)
al-Sistani
Chavez (though I'm to the not-trusting side)
Lula
Turkmenbashi
Berlusconi
Hu Jintao

I briefly had Gaddafi ranked before Bush and started to explain that it wasn't idle rhetoric, that I'd read a long profile on Gaddafi in the New Yorker a couple of months ago that changed my mind about whether he's such a bad guy, but he's still more insane than Bush.

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Rough guide to thoughts of the moment -

Vaclav Havel
Nelson Mandela
Angela Merkel
Kofi Annan
al-Sistani
Lula
Barack Obama
Vladimir Putin
John Kerry
John McCain
Hillary Clinton
Jacques Chirac
Anthony Blair
George W. Bush
Silvio Berlusconi
Moammar Gadaffi
Hu Jintao
Zapatero
Hugo Chavez

I don't know about the T' guy.

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Re: The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them

ehBeth wrote:

The fifth group, I think, is the one where I get a great sense of ends justifying means - and that is what makes me uneasy. Perhaps they should be my bottom group - I don't trust them to be good or bad. I trust them to follow their own political self-interest (which more often than not has matched my own, but ...)

This should have referred to the fourth group.

I got so focussed on keeping the 'list' format, that I lost the ability to count/edit.

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I first liked eBrown's list, then ehBeth's. I just tried to edit mine, to put Putin higher.

I endeavored badly not to do categories, so much. I was trying to list an order of non-shiftyness, however I disagree with any one of those people.
Many of them changed over time, tis the nature of the beast.

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Ok, ok, I reserve the right to change my mind entirely.

After all, some of them did.. or almost entirely.

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What a bunch of garbage! I will ask Nihm if he is aware that the most powerful nation in the world is the USA. Then I will ask him if he knows that the USA's influence in the world is not the most damaging to the rest of the world? To put the names of non-entities along side of the most dangerous man in the world is trying to obfuscate. Bush is far far more dangerous and by far the least trustworthy in the entire list. Because he is the president of the world's most powerful nation, he cannot be put in the same ranking list---what a bunch of garbage. It looks like Nihm is just trying to minimize the extent to which Bushie has led the entire world into chaos.

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MarionT wrote:

It looks like Nihm is just trying to minimize the extent to which Bushie has led the entire world into chaos.

Marion, I think you've hit it on the head ... nihm is always trying to minimize the extent to which Bush has led the world into chaos.

He says a lot of stuff that might lead one to think he has leftist tendencies, but I think you've got his number ... he's a Bushie.

I wouldn't trust him, were I you.

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I know what he is. He seems to me to be a moderate. They are the most dangerous of all. If there are too many moderates, too many of them will vote for Republicans in November. That is why they call them moderates.
The only way to beat the Bushies is to get all of the nation which has seen our boys die for nothing and has viewed the massive spending mad. They have to get mad and turn out to vote out the Bush crowd.

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People I trust:

● Obama
● Mandela
● Annan
● Al-Sistani
● Kerry
● Havel

Less trust:

● McCain
● Clinton
● Blair
● Chirac
● Merkel

Very down:

● Chavez
● Putin
● Gadaffi

Never ever:

● Berlusconi
● Bush
● Hu Jintao
● Gadaffi

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

People I trust:

● Obama
● Mandela
● Annan
● Al-Sistani
● Kerry
● Havel

Less trust:

● McCain
● Clinton
● Blair
● Chirac
● Merkel

Very down:

● Chavez
● Putin
● Gadaffi

Never ever:

● Berlusconi
● Bush
● Hu Jintao
● Gadaffi

Interesting list, Walter. Can you give some reasons? And why is Gadaffi listed twice? I'm especially keen to hear your reasoning behind Merkel.
Seeing all these lists really makes me wonder about this Obama fellow. I guess I'll look him up and see what he stands for.

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ehBeth wrote:

najmelliw wrote:
He, of course, ranks high as well. The reason I ranked Sistani high is for the same grounds ehbeth ranked him high...

you can't imagine how it startled me to read this ... before I'd started the exercise

oops....

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Gaddaffi stayed by misfortune in the second lowest atble - forgot to kick him out there :wink:

Reasons .... more personal feelings, I think. Resulting from live experience/reading/stuying history and especially own experiences in politics (which includes a closer, personal knowledge of some politicans from the left to the right).

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Re: The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them
There are some close calls, but basically my list would look as follows:

Mandela
Havel
Obama
McCain
Merkel
Kerry
Lula
Blair
Kofi Annan
Hillary Clinton
Zapatero
Chirac
al-Sistani
Hu Jintao
Berlusconi
Bush
Putin
Chavez
Gadaffi
Turkmenbashi

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... Wait a minute, nimh: When you say "Mandela", do you mean Nelson or Winnie? My answer is for Nelson. Winnie would be much, much farther down the list.

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The great politician trust charts - you get to rank them!

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