Worst Political Leaders #2: Vladimir Putin vs. George W. Bush
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  Worst Political Leaders #2: Vladimir Putin vs. George W. Bush
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Poll
Question: Who is worse?
#1
George W. Bush
 
#2
Vladimir Putin
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 23

Author Topic: Worst Political Leaders #2: Vladimir Putin vs. George W. Bush  (Read 1135 times)
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Junior Chimp
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« on: April 07, 2021, 10:43:09 PM »

RESULTS OF 4/7's POLL

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - 13 votes
Marine Le Pen - 7 votes

Baghdadi is moving to the next bracket with 15 others.

For today, I span the wheel and got an interesting combo. George W. Bush, president of USA from 2001-2009 vs. Vladimir Putin, current president of Russia.

Let the voting commence! You have until midnight 4/9 to vote.

PREVIOUS MATCHUPS:

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Marine Le Pen

Also, Please no drama and be respectful in the replies and let me know what you think of this idea. If this is successful I'll do a 32 Best World Leaders bracket later down the line.
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LAKISYLVANIA
Lakigigar
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« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2021, 03:45:38 AM »

This one is hard. Putin will obviously win this poll, but personally i don't think the difference is very big. As a person I think Bush is a better person, no question, although I also think Putin is a better person IRL than his policies suggest, but Putin is also very strategic, intelligent and smart, and outclasses Bush in that regard.

I'm not sure how we have to define worst political leader. If we measure it in terms of capability and things like that, Putin wins this, because Bush was not a good leader at all.

But if we measure it in terms of would you rather have Bush as president or Putin as prime minister of your country. Perhaps the answer is Bush. But what if turn the tides, and make Putin president of the USA and Bush president of Russia. Would the answer still be the same, and i'm not that sure anymore.

So i'll probably vote Bush, but i'm not voting yet, because i'm not sure what the definition of worst political leader is, since depending on the definition, Putin might be the worst after all, and also because I want to hear some other users out what they think about this match-up, which could change my opinion.

Not that it would matter in the end, because Putin is certainly going to have the "honour" to win this poll.

Part of my reasoning is also: "okay we have Putin", but are we sure that if someone else leads Russia, Russia is going to be a better country, and that relations wouldn't even be more hostile? I mean Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov are his two main opponents, and I don't think they're better than Putin in regards to international policy. Even Navalny isn't really an FF, given his attitude towards Georgia.
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LAKISYLVANIA
Lakigigar
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« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2021, 03:53:47 AM »

Bush did some war crimes (but perhaps it's a bit much too only blame him, and not only congress). IIRC people like Hillary Clinton just agreed with those war crimes, and they should have known better. Even the current president just voted in favour of it. Social democrats like Blair did the same thing.

Putin however also did some war crimes, although i have a hard time finding a worser offence than the Iraq disaster. But if you count all incidents, perhaps what Russia did or does is worse than Iraq alone (esp. Ukraine conflict comes close to Iraq), but these conflicts are geopolitical and Europe / Western world trying to usurp Ukraine into their sphere of influence might've provoked something that wouldn't have happened if we didn't do anything.

If i want to not vote for Bush because of his attitude towards LGBTQ people (as president, not now, but as president), i can't vote for Putin either, because he isn't better in that regard. However Russia's people have shown less support for LGBTQ rights than the USA where it could have been a bit easier to set the right example. It was far easier for someone like Bush to be a better leader, than it is for Putin obviously, because of the public opinion.

Bush also enabled the polarized environment in which someone like Trump could rise and that gave birth to the polarization we now see today (although Reagan also played a role in that).

The economical crisis of 2008 is not something i'm going to blame the Bush administration for all that much, since it happened at the end, and could have happened under a Democratic president, and was a result of year-long / decade-long economic policies, that were inevitably going to result in that (and it will happen again).
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Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom
theflyingmongoose
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« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2021, 10:26:25 AM »
« Edited: April 08, 2021, 06:45:04 PM by Mitch O'Donnell, Mayor of Louisville »

Putin is not that bad of a leader- he's just evil.

GWB is a terrible leader, but not evil.

For the context of this question, Bush is worse.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2021, 11:35:40 AM »

Poll is actually looking pretty close at the moment.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2021, 11:42:12 AM »

This one is hard. Putin will obviously win this poll, but personally i don't think the difference is very big. As a person I think Bush is a better person, no question, although I also think Putin is a better person IRL than his policies suggest, but Putin is also very strategic, intelligent and smart, and outclasses Bush in that regard.

I'm not sure how we have to define worst political leader. If we measure it in terms of capability and things like that, Putin wins this, because Bush was not a good leader at all.

But if we measure it in terms of would you rather have Bush as president or Putin as prime minister of your country. Perhaps the answer is Bush. But what if turn the tides, and make Putin president of the USA and Bush president of Russia. Would the answer still be the same, and i'm not that sure anymore.

So i'll probably vote Bush, but i'm not voting yet, because i'm not sure what the definition of worst political leader is, since depending on the definition, Putin might be the worst after all, and also because I want to hear some other users out what they think about this match-up, which could change my opinion.

Not that it would matter in the end, because Putin is certainly going to have the "honour" to win this poll.

Part of my reasoning is also: "okay we have Putin", but are we sure that if someone else leads Russia, Russia is going to be a better country, and that relations wouldn't even be more hostile? I mean Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov are his two main opponents, and I don't think they're better than Putin in regards to international policy. Even Navalny isn't really an FF, given his attitude towards Georgia.

In terms of worse. I mean that in terms of both capability and would you rather have Bush or Putin as leader of your country with maybe a slight bias toward the latter of the two. For me, the vote was rather easy. I voted for Bush mainly because Putin did not launch a massive war of aggression, killing hundreds of thousands. Putin has always been well liked by his people, Bush was not when he left office so that's another big difference for me.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2021, 11:51:12 AM »

It's a tied vote at the moment. If the vote is tied at midnight, I'll move who I find worse to the next bracket.
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Storr
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« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2021, 06:32:15 PM »

Bush. Putin only engages in limited foreign interventions (South Ossetia, Donbass, Crimea). Bush....did not. Not to mention Putin's neo-Russian traditionalist nationalism is still alive today and popular in his country. Meanwhile, "compassionate conservatism" and neocon interventionism are both long dead. If Putin died today, it would be hard to argue he wasn't a successful leader. Russia definitely still has its issues, but it is in a much better state than it was during the late 90s. The United State was in a much, much worse position economically, fiscally, and with much worse foreign relations by the time George decided to pick up painting.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2021, 08:33:11 PM »

Only two and a half hours left to vote.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2021, 04:31:47 AM »

Poll is closed. I will take a break today.
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