Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is pleased to report that many people seemed to ask themselves that time honored question (HWMMLV? Or “How would my Maximum Leader vote?) and answered the question correctly…

Yes… All in all it was a pretty good electorally speaking. For the first time in a very long time every single candidate for whom your Maximum Leader cast his ballot won. That bond issue even passed. It was sort of crazy. The best news of the night, for your Maximum Leader, came later when he learned that Susan Stimpson had decisively won her race for Stafford Supervisor - Falmouth District. In a three way race she got just over 50% of the vote. That was great news.

All in all the results all over the nation seemed to please your Maximum Leader. There was that whole NY-23 thingie that was a little disappointing. If you don’t mind your Maximum Leader saying so, he could sort of see the NY-23 seat going the way it did. Even after whats-her-name dropped out you had to figure there would be a bunch of people who would see her name and party affiliation and just tick the box without thinking. If it had been a two person race, then he thinks Hoffman could have prevailed. So there is that…

All in all do these elections mean much in the grand scheme of things. Well… Not too much most likely. The President and the Congress are going to do more to hurt themselves over the next year than the damage these election results have done. If anything these elections are symbolic of the bloom being off the rose. One can hope that the major offshoot of the election will be some energetic opposition on the part of the Republicans, good candidate recruitment on the part of Republicans, and perhaps the press will feel that they can be a little less deferential to the President.

Your Maximum Leader should go on the record (again) now and say that conservatives need to call their shots in the upcoming election. This is to say that pragmatism should rule the day over plain ideology. How did the Democrats become a majority party? They did it by getting some “moderate” Democrats in areas where they needed them. Conservatives should carefully study the electoral maps. Where conservatives can win, conservatives should run. But where conservatives haven’t shown a history of winning then you need to find a “moderate” who can win. Politics isn’t an all-or-nothing game. There is always division of the loaf. What a large majority grants you is the ability to get more of the loaf. Pick battles carefully and don’t be sulky if you don’t always get your way.

Now celebrate the day and get ready for another battle…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader voted today. He went ahead and did what amounted to a straight party-line ticket. McDonnell, Bolling, Cucinnelli for the top three. Then he voted for Bill Howell for Delegate and Susan Stimpson for Supervisor. He also voted for Meg Bohmke for School Board (she was running unopposed).

For the first time in a long long time he voted for a bond referendum. This happened to be one to improve public parks in the county.

While casting his votes today he felt as though he was voting against the Washington Post Editorial Board. Why? Because all three of the major Democratic candidates haven’t communicated any message beyond “The Washington Post endorsed me.” That seems to be the big takeaway from all of their ads.

If you live in a locality that has an election today, please go and vote. If you have a question about who to vote for or against, feel free to leave a comment here and ask for guidance. Your Maximum Leader is all about helping you like that.

If you can’t leave a comment ask yourself “HWMMLV?” (Or How would my Maximum Leader vote?) and to the villainous thing.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw an interesting headline on the wires today. Here it is:

Saudi female TV journalist gets 60 lashes.

When your Maximum Leader read the headline he thought to himself… “She must have been driving a car. Or perhaps she was out in public without a male escort. Maybe her head was uncovered by a gust of wind and her revealed hair startled a bunch of old men. Perhaps she spoke without first being spoken to?”

Then your Maximum Leader went ahead and clicked through and read the piece. Do you know why the woman got 60 lashes? Because she worked for a tv station that aired a program in which some idiot man bragged about his sex life.

You read that right. She worked for a television station that aired a show in which a man bragged about his sex life. Please note that she did not brag about her sex life (presuming she has one - which one hopes for her sake she does not). Neither did she appear on the program in question. She just worked there.

Oh… In case you are wondering, apparently the man doing the bragging got five years in prison and 1000 lashes. The female victim of Wahhabi justice seems to have gotten off easy by comparison.

Your Maximum Leader hopes to live long enough to see the Saudi legal system modernize to the 1700’s. He could send some Blackstone’s over there if it would help…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is borrowing a post title from good ole Tom Leherer. Damn that man was funny. One can suspect that he is still funny, although not performing. Sadly, this post will be neither funny nor informative. It will likely be crap.

Since it has been a few days you’ve probably been wondering, “Self, what has happened to my Maximum Leader? I feel lost without his inspired musings.” Well… Your Maximum Leader has been taking care of Maximum Leaderly things. You know like creating fake “balloon boy” stories to distract people from the real news. He has also be shuttling his handsome children from one activity to another. Damn. Those kids are doing a lot. Karate. Piano lessons. Sports. “Play dates.” It is crazy. Then when he’s had time to sit down and relax he’s been watching some early season hockey and now baseball playoffs. Blogging hasn’t seemed like a priority.

Even if blogging hadn’t seemed like a priority over the week, your Maximum Leader’s love of his minions has caused his fingers to itch for the keyboard so that he can share some thoughts about the week’s events with you all.

First off… Your Maximum Leader, as many of you know already, is not a big Rush Limbaugh fan. And when he says “not a big fan” he really means “not a fan at all.” Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader knows that Rush has said things in his 20 years on the air that have offended people. But to cite quotes that he apparently didn’t say in order to blackball him from a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams football team is low. Very low. It is both lazy and inexcusable for the press to use unsourced books for gathering offensive Limbaugh quotes rather than actually trying to use the approximately 14,500 hours of recorded material from his radio show to get a quote. Your Maximum Leader feels pity and distain towards the reporters who started to circulate the fake quotes and he feels a little sympathy towards Rush Limbaugh. Your Maximum Leader knows that conservative commentators aren’t given any slack or even the benefit of doubt when it comes to racial issues; but this strikes him as being beyond the pale.

Having said that, your Maximum Leader doesn’t believe that the group dropping Limbaugh from investor list is a problem. That is a business transaction. These things happen. Frankly, the NFL saying that they didn’t want Limbaugh is a little much for your Maximum Leader; but that too is a business matter. Your Maximum Leader isn’t going to get worked up about this part of the story.

Your Maximum Leader has seen the tops of Meghan McCain’s boobs this week. Your Maximum Leader thinks that Meghan McCain is sorta cute. He is a little disappointed in the hullaballoo that has ensued after that photo got around. People need to lighten up some. If a paparazzi photo of her appeared on the internet showing her in a swimsuit would she still be a slut? Doubtful on that call. Sure this was a silly thing to do; but to jump all over her (metaphorically) is crazy.

While speaking of Meghan McCain… She seems to be writing for some web site and excoriating social conservatives for being… socially conservatives. Many conservatives don’t seem to believe that there is a place in the Republican party for Meghan McCain or others with similar beliefs. Perhaps we should all think back to 1994 when the Republican’s took back the House of Representatives. The “Contract with America” didn’t contain any major “socially conservative” clauses. (The reduction of welfare spending could be considered a budgetary matter with a social component.) The thrust of the contract was to reduce the size of the government and balance the budget. Now we know that the late Republican House didn’t end well on that count; but your Maximum Leader would argue that the future for the conservative movement, and Republican party, is to get back to the macro-economic issues and broad ideas on the size and scope of the federal government. Tabling some of the more divisive social agenda and actually producing on the economic/government side of the equation has been a winning formula in the past and should be in the future. It would likely be easier to have conservatives and Republicans coalesce around a few basic agreeable principles than to demand action on all fronts. (Indeed, just look at how action on all fronts seems to be working out for the President right now.)

Olympia Snowe voted to get the health care bill out of committee. That is sad news. One hopes that the liberal House will insist on keeping the poison-pill public-option in the bill and Olympia (and Susan Collins) will decided to opt out of the final bill. If Democrats want the bill they should pass the bill. They have the votes. It is clear that they want something resembling “bipartisanship” on the bill. But it is also clear that the votes aren’t really there. Just pass a bill if you have the balls to (which your Maximum Leader doubts). Otherwise just shut the hell up and try a different approach - like tort reform and removing some of the barriers to interstate insurance competition…

Oh yes… It looks like the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt might be back on the market soon. Good news for some lucky guy. (NB to JLH: call your Maximum Leader. He is not your love match. Well, perhaps an unrequited platonic love type of thing. He needs to sit you down and find out where your mind is. He fears you are becoming a needy emotional wreck like Jennifer Aniston. You don’t need to go down that path. You need to be more comfortable about yourself and less emotionally dependent on losers to validate your self-image… Your Maximum Leader is the only person from whom you need approval. Just call… And send photos… Preferably in a Naked Villainy T-shirt and Thong…)

Well… That is about it for now. Perhaps your Maximum Leader will blog more later. Perhaps not. He does know that he’s got a great weekend planned. Perhaps there will be photos in it for you later…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hears it from here. In deepest Georgia, James Earl Carter has buried his head in the ample bosom of his wife to hide the sounds of his wailing. Mr. Carter is recounting his accomplishments. Camp David. Habitat for Humanity. All those elections he monitored. All those dictators with whom he negotiated. All those visits to Haiti… They were all steps towards earning a Nobel Peace Prize. Alas, he now recognizes the error of his ways. If he hadn’t had an accent, was younger and more buff, and was reknown for soaring oratory he wouldn’t have had to actually do anything to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t hear any crying from Henry Kissinger. Why? Because years ago Henry melted down his Nobel medal and fashioned them into little pins that read “Hammered by Henry.” He then took the pins and the prize money and spent a week in Vegas that is remembered to this day…

So Barack Obama has won the friggin Nobel Peace Prize. What can you say but “What the fuck?”

Barack Obama has done as much to advance world peace as has your Maximum Leader. Barack Obama has made a whole bunch of speeches about outreach and change. Your Maximum Leader once wrote a 10 step plan that would result in a more peaceful world. See! Same difference.

Of course this is not to say that the Norwegian Nobel Committee had much credibility with your Maximum Leader. Their picks the past few time round have been dubious at best. But this award takes the cake for undeserved honors.

In many respects this award is nothing more than a “great effort” certificate that kids get for playing team sports - regardless of their record. Only in this case there wasn’t much effort put in by the winner before getting the certificate…

If the President has any sense whatsoever (and it is likely that he does not in this matter) he’d send Hillary (or Bill) Clinton to accept the award on his behalf, and give a speech about peace… That would be on par with the accomplishments that lead to the award being given in the first place.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader needs to carve out 1 hour of time to read/blog/think every day. He’s mismanaging his free time. As a result you all are deprived of his mindless ranting…

Here are some thoughts your Maximum Leader will share with you:

Sarah Palin has finished her memoir earlier than expected. One supposes that if you quit your job and thus made time to write this isn’t a big accomplishment. Your Maximum Leader is weary of Sarah Palin. In his mind she remains a quitter. He cannot support a quitter.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know if you’ve been following the Virginia Governors race. He has. He can’t recall a time where one candidate is only running negative ads. In this case it it Democrat Creigh Deeds. The only ads Deeds seems to be running are all attacking Bob McDonnell for his (poorly written) Master’s Thesis (and his position on abortion). McDonnell’s ads seem to be a mix of attacking Deeds on his (lack of a) transportation plan and (lack of a cogent) tax plan; and some peppy “I’m going to be a jobs governor” message. Deeds’ ads are just attack McDonnell. Your Maximum Leader thinks you probably ought to throw in some “I’m a good guy” ads in there. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t seen the latest polling information but he hears that Deeds is narrowing the gap between the two men. Attack ads work at some level, but at another level you need to give voters some reason to vote for you and not just against the other guy.

Your Maximum Leader hopes he can make some time and try and catch up with FLG and read “The Republic.” It has been more than 20 years since your Maximum Leader has cracked open Plato. It would serve his brain good to do so now.

That is it. Nuthin’ more.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wasn’t a big Bill Clinton fan while he was in office. Frankly your Maximum Leader isn’t a Bill Clinton fan right now. Okay… Your Maximum Leader jokes about Bill Clinton working to improve the US’s image one vagina at a time; but those jests are only half-jests at best…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t read Bill Clinton’s memoirs. He doesn’t plan to frankly. But there could be a Clinton book out there that he would want to read. Did you see on USA Today how Clinton and historian Taylor Branch met in secret 79 times throughout Clinton’s White House years and recorded interviews about what was going on in Bill’s head at the time? Your Maximum Leader didn’t know. Apparently, until a few days ago, no one knew. Now USA Today knows and has written about it.

Here are some highlights…

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and civil rights historian, would pick up a notepad of questions and two microcassette recorders and drive his truck down Interstate 95 to Washington. Parking on the South Lawn, he would head to the White House family quarters for interviews so secret Clinton stored the tapes of them in his sock drawer.

What followed sometimes seemed like one of the bull sessions the two had two decades earlier when they shared an apartment in Austin, running George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in Texas.

In these interviews and a new book that has followed, Branch says he tried to capture Clinton’s unvarnished perspective on the events swirling around his presidency, from the consequential to the occasionally comic.

Reluctant to discuss the affair with Monica Lewinsky that led to his impeachment, Clinton once lamented that it occurred when he felt sorry for himself and that he “just cracked” under the pressure of personal and political setback.

He also relayed how Boris Yeltsin’s late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him

…

Branch says the two conferred several times about it during the administration’s opening months. Clinton proposed Branch fill the role Arthur Schlesinger Jr. played in the Kennedy administration, a sort of court historian on the White House staff. Branch declined. Clinton tried dictating a diary but found it unwieldy; he said he needed to be interacting with someone.

In September 1993, Branch agreed to do oral history interviews with Clinton until the president could train someone on his staff for that role. No one else was ever trained, and their sessions continued until Clinton left office in 2001.

The president was determined to keep them secret to avoid what he saw as inevitable demands for disclosure.

“I was constantly wrestling with, ‘What is my job?’ ” Branch says. “Basically, my first goal was to say, ‘This is about history. … I want to get as much raw material on the record as possible.’ But it was never that simple.”

Branch was there as a historian but he also was a friend, and Clinton at times would seek his advice. From 1998 to 1999, Branch’s wife worked at the White House as a speechwriter for Hillary Clinton. As Bill Clinton finished his memoirs, he surprised Branch with a $50,000 “bonus” for his help in laying the groundwork for them.

Publication of Branch’s book has underscored the conflicting agendas of friend and historian.

Clinton on several occasions had encouraged Branch to write a book about their sessions, albeit at some undesignated point in the future. The author used the advance he received from the publishing house Simon & Schuster to have his own tapes transcribed; he had stored them in a safe deposit box at a bank.

Those tapes will be available to researchers next year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The former president had planned to use the interviews he had given when he wrote his book, but there is little sign he did. As he neared the deadline to submit his manuscript in 2004, he invited Branch to Chappaqua to read the first 700 pages. Branch was stunned to find that with only a month or two to go until his deadline, Clinton was just beginning to write about his time in the White House.

This looks like good stuff… Your Maximum Leader might actually spring for a copy when it is published. It sounds like it would be a better purchase than the money spent on “Dutch.”

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled in favor of Emily’s List and declared that soft-money donations cannot be limited by law.

According to the piece:

In his opinion, Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed with Emily’s List that the regulations violated the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech.

“The First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, protects the right of individual citizens to spend unlimited amounts to express their views about policy issues and candidates for office,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Similarly, the First Amendment, as the Court has construed it, safeguards the right of citizens to band together and pool their resources as an unincorporated group or non-profit organization in order to express their views about policy issues and candidates for public office. We agree with Emily’s List that the new FEC regulations contravene those principles and violate the First Amendment.”

Your Maximum Leader likes this line of thinking. Indeed, if he had his druthers he would not limit money spent for political activities at all. He would require full public disclosure of any and all donations made to politicians and lobbying groups (no anonymous donations) within 30 days of the donations receipt. He doesn’t mind people spending money in politics in our country. He minds restrictions on money and not knowing who the money comes from.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t read the Cap & Trade bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. He’s heard plenty of bad things about it from the usual suspects. (And to be fair, he’s heard opposite arguments from the other set of usual suspects.) On the balance the Cap & Trade system just doesn’t seem to be workable in its current form. Ideally the system would use “market forces” to “reduce carbon emissions.” There seem to be many problems directly relating to how insulated from real “market forces” the system would actually be.

Then of course there is always the issue of cost. On the CBS news blog site:

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama’s transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”

The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.

Wow. An upper end estimate of $1761.00 per household. Fun! Just what we need to combat falling consumer prices! Your Maximum Leader can hardly wait!

Thanks to Asian Badger for the link.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes the US Constitution a happy birthday! If you are an franchise-holding American and haven’t read the Constitution… Well… You are a huge fucking idiot. It is only the greatest framework for self-governance ever created from the mind of men. We argue about it. We mess with it in ways we shouldn’t. We disregard it too often and at our own peril. We also revere it in a way that most non-Americans will never understand.

Your Maximum Leader is hoping for at least another 222 years for the Constitution.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader always like to read Robert Stacy McCain’s stuff. He particularly liked today’s post about teen pregnancy, religion, and Margaret Tudor. It takes real talent to weave these items together. Bejeweled floppy cap is doffed in RSM’s direction…

That said… Your Maximum Leader, as longtime readers know, is a big fan of Richard III and not a big fan of Henry VII (or Henry VIII, or most of the Tudors for that matter - okay he is generally fine with Elizabeth I). Just because your Maximum Leader isn’t a fan on Henry VII doesn’t mean that he isn’t man enough to recognize Margaret Tudor’s positive influence on her son.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is still funkified. In a bad way. He’s contemplating blaming Kanye West. But honestly other than what he’s read on the interwebs recently he’s doesn’t know a damn thing about Kanye West. He appears to be dating some bald woman - who other than her baldness and rash of tattoos would be pretty attractive. He seems to drink a lot too. Oh yeah. He’s a jackass too.

But your Maximum Leader’s funky mood is not likely related at all to Kanye…

Since your Maximum Leader is all out of sorts he hasn’t felt like blogging… But if he were to blog about politics and current events recently he’s probably write something similar to the two most recent posts from everyone’s favorite blogger, Skippy.

In the first post to which your Maximum Leader will direct you, Skippy discusses the stupidity of the Obama Administration’s position on trade with China. Your Maximum Leader is a free-trader and someone who believes in living up to treaty obligations. So many of Skippy’s critiques of the Bush (and now perhaps Obama) Administration’s positions on trade strike a chord with him. The prospect of opening a trade war in the middle of a deep recession with our major creditor nation seems like… How does one say it? A bad move? It just keeps getting worse and worse for the ole US of A doesn’t it? Sometimes the best course is to keeps your wits and steer a straight and steady course. Health care reform/takeovers and trade wars in the middle of a downturn when confidence is already shot isn’t a good move.

The second post to which your Maximum Leader will direct you is the whole Conservative vs. Republican divide. As time has gone by your Maximum Leader has realized that he is more and more a “conservative” and less and less a “Republican.” He’d consider voting for Libertarians, but they are a little wacky for his tastes. The only two items with which your Maximum Leader will have to respectfully disagree with Skippy in this post are these. While it is absolutely true that Reagan spent piles of money without doing much to try and balance a budget, the overriding plan was to defeat the Soviet Union. Once that was done budget balancing would become a higher priority. The second minor quibble is that there are plenty of conservatives in the Republican party, but they just don’t seem to do much in terms of directing the debate.

Your Maximum Leader hopes his funky mood will disappear soon.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has given some thought today to Rep. Joe Wilson’s little outburst last night during the President’s speech.

The US Congress (House and Senate both) have for quite a long time been caught up on decorum and politeness. Indeed, in most legislative bodies around the world you are just as likely to be punched in the mouth as you are to be called “My honorable friend from (insert district/state here)”. Politics is a rough and tumble business. And emotions sometimes run hot. When they do, well… Shit happens… In a legislative body the shit that happens is often manifested by someone saying something not-so-nice or a little rude. Frankly, your Maximum Leader wishes the House of Representatives were a little more like the British Parliament when it came to debates and “feedback” from the backbenches. Last night the backbencher who couldn’t hold his tongue was Joe Wilson.

Was Joe Wilson being rude? Well… He was given the way people today expect our legislators to behave when being addressed by the president. But then again… Remember that George Washington decided never to give a speech before Congress after the way he was treated after his first State of the Union address.

Perhaps our legislators have lost their edge.

Perhaps Joe Wilson will spark a return to more rough and tumble debate…

If we see more enlivened debate in the House, your Maximum Leader might watch C-Span more often.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader promised you a variation on an old familiar list. Well here tis.

Your Maximum Leader knows that every “President’s Day” (known to civilized Americans as “Washington’s Birthday”) that lists abound enumerating the “Greatest Presidents of the United States.” Well… Your Maximum Leader has decided to enumerate the worst Presidents of the United States. Here you are:

THE 10 WORST PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(This is an ordered list with #1 being the worst President in the history of our Republic.)

10. George W. Bush
9. Franklin Pierce
8. Zachary Taylor
7. Millard Filmore
6. Jimmy Carter
5. James Buchanan
4. Woodrow Wilson
3. Richard Nixon
2. Ulysses Grant
1. Warren Harding

Honestly, this was a very hard list to put together. One has so many choices it is sometimes hard to split hairs. (And although Richard Nixon is on this list, you very well could put him on a list of the greatest presidents as well. His presidency is schizophrenic that way. So many great accomplishments and so many terrible mistakes.) Your Maximum Leader, in all honesty, feels that although he has just left office we can judge George W. Bush’s presidency negatively. Your Maximum Leader is basing his rating there on the basis of fiscal policy and mishandling early on of Iraq. Your Maximum Leader voted for Bush (twice) and can’t say he regets either of those votes. But in the end, Bush just messed things up.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as he promised, is continuing on his listmania streak. Today he provides for you a list of the greatest rulers in the history of the world. Yesterday he promised that the list would be of the greatest “leaders” in the history of the world. While putting together today’s list your Maximum Leader realized that a better appelation would be “rulers.” Allow him to explain.

This was a tough list to put together. There are so many criteria by which one could judge someone as being “great.” The criteria that your Maximum Leader settled on mentally were these: scope of power/influence in geographic terms, power within the political structure, longevity of rule/reign, scope of internal improvments within territory ruled, “cultural” growth/blossoming. After considering these criteria your Maximum Leader determined that leaders in democracies tend not be able to be compared to leaders in political systems where power is invested in a narrower number of people (or in just one person). Thus, your Maximum Leader determined that he wasn’t talking about “leaders” in the sense that we might call George Washington, Winston Churchill, or Charles DeGaulle leaders. He was really talking about rulers in an imperial or other monarchical sense. Your Maximum Leader also determined that these rules had to generally behave in a way that an objective observer could reasonably describe as “good.” This would eliminate men like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao from the list - although they might otherwise fit the criteria.

That said… Here is the list:

THE TOP 10 GREATEST RULERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD

1. Augustus Caesar. First emperor of the Roman Empire.
2. Qin Shihuang. First emperor of China.
3. Tokugawa Ieyasu. Shogun of Japan.
4. Peter I of Russia. Tsar of Russia.
5. Rameses II. Pharaoh of Egypt.
6. Charlemagne. Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Franks.
7. Alexander the Great. King of Macedona.
8. Kublai Khan. Emperor of China.
9. Louis XIV. King of France.
10. Heraclius. Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

NB: The links on this list are all to Wikipedia pages. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t read all of those pages completely for accuracy and scope. He puts them there as general references.

Your Maximum Leader notes that this list is unordered, except for number 1. Your Maximum Leader does believe that Augustus Ceasar would top his list in any circumstances.

Tomorrow… A slightly different take on an old familiar list…

Carry on.