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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Name That Incompetent Boob! |
| 2009-02-08 |
| Can anyone think of a person, male or female,that found him/herself perched above a large system, large and in charge as it were, such as an army or a nation, or a corporation who did not belong there, and was not competent to be there but was there to run the thing nevertheless; whose leadership of said large system eventually proved to be that person's or that system's undoing? You can go back as far as 3000 BC, but you can't name Obama, one glaringly obvious answer. One answer I have would be Xerxes |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 I learn something worth remembering every time you post, mom dear. Thank you. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-02-08 23:22 |
| #7 Maximilian I of Mexico. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-02-08 20:33 |
| #6 Charles I (Emperor Charles V) and Phillip II of Spain, whose neglect of Spain's infrastructure in favor of Habsburg dynastic policies set the precedent for centuries of royal stupidity in Spain. The loot taken from the New World went not to Spain, but to pay for various Habsburg dynastic wars and wars against the Reformation. So European bankers got rich while ordinary Spaniards suffered appalling poverty. No middle class arose in Spain after Ferdinand and Isabella kicked the Jews out; and Habsburg economic policies didn't encourage a new middle class. The Inquisition stifled intellectual development. Meanwhile, the Spanish govt became top-heavy with clergy, bureaucrats, and other hidalgos (Hijos de Algo, literally, "Sons of Something") who became a parasitic lot that sapped Spain's energy, leading to its decline into a third class power. Subsequent Habsburg rulers of Spain continued the policy, and inbred the royal family into extinction too. Louis XIV went to war with Spain to put one of his relatives on the throne, and the resulting Spanish Bourbons, with the possibly exception of Charles III, had the brains of turnips. See Goya's painting of the Royal Family of Charles IV. They were too dumb to see that he painted them as the conniving jerks they were. These are the fools Napoleon deposed. |
| Posted by: mom 2009-02-08 20:06 |
| #5 Alan Greenspan. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles the flatulent 2009-02-08 19:16 |
| #4 Much like Tzar Nicholas II -- King Louis XVI of France, although in fairness he took a bankrupt monarchy and watched in bewilderment as it slid into the Reign of Terror, taking his family's heads with it. The man was competent neither at governing the country he'd inherited nor the wife he'd been given. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-02-08 18:50 |
| #3 I dunno. I kinda like Alcibiades. He had a lot of notable victories, and was a capable commander. His downfall was his habit of making powerful enemies. And he was rather quick to go somewhere else to get a command once his enemies pushed him out. But incompetent? No. Not in my opinion. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-02-08 17:12 |
| #2 Alcibaides. Tiberius. Stephen Plantagenet. Charles I (Stuart). Takeda Katsuyori. Seems to be a symptom of humanity, not culture. |
| Posted by: Slerong Fillmore3596 2009-02-08 15:23 |
| #1 Tzar Nicholas II. Destroyed Russia from a great power to a remnant. Encouraged Japanese expansionism by losing the Russo-Japanese war. His pogroms drove Jews out of Russia. Blew the east front in WW1. Gave Communism a nation. Got himself and his family executed. Basically, the echoes of his failures dominated most of the 20th century. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-02-08 13:59 |