Ugly world leaders, part 2.

Hello, dear friends. I’ll bet you knew this was coming. After a suggestion this morning from Sam’s cousin Darrell I’ve decided to continue expanding my gallery of ugly world leaders. Darrell thought I should include Richard Nixon, Kim Jong-il and Henry Kissinger. I completely agreed with the latter two but countered that Nixon, although somewhat disgusting in many respects, was not what you’d actually consider butt-ugly. And then I decided to add two more of my own, both of whom were runners-up to yesterday’s top five but didn’t make the final cut. In case their names aren’t familiar I’ll include a few statistics along with a sincere wish that you’ll consider a night course in modern history.

Kim Jong-il has been Supreme Lunatic and Leader of North Korea since July 1994; Henry Kissinger was U.S. secretary of state from September 1973 through January 1977 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice ... from May 1940 through July 1945 and again from October 1951 through April 1955; and Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was in office from March 1933 through April 1945. After her husband’s death Mrs. Roosevelt was appointed U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, where she served from December 1946 through December 1952. Her looks did NOT improve with age.

Please allow me to make an important statement here: I AM NOT A MEAN-SPIRITED PEOPLE-HATER. With the exception of maniacal dictators like Hugo Chavez, Moammar al-Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il, I really admire the other world leaders pictured in today’s post and yesterday’s. I mean, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were popular heroes from World War II, Henry Kissinger was a master of foreign policy and diplomacy, Golda Meir was a much-loved Israeli leader, and President Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the Great Society, an agenda of sweeping social reforms to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States. They were all amazing, accomplished (and unfortunately ugly) people.

If you can come up with any others I’ll be glad to take suggestions. Thank you for reading this and please try to keep cool. It’s 102° in Dallas today and I’m not going ANYWHERE.