Behind the curve a bit, I just discovered the Reuters blog Oddly Enough. And here I am commenting on the first post I read: Cool dudes, dashing in haberdashery…, the last installment of Oddly Enough’s “scientific Coolest Leader Dude poll.”
I’ll be kind and skip the title…of both the post and the poll. Let’s focus on the contestants: Obama, Putin, and Prince Charles. Slim pickins if we’re truly talking about the traditional definition of cool. Michelle Obama, yes. But B. Obama’s mom jeans, Bud Light, and medium-well burger each mean immediate disqualification in my book. Let’s not even talk about the other two. Ok, well, Putin is certainly macho but is definitely not cool.
Admittedly the easy choices, B. Clinton and Koizumi, have left office and others with aspects of what we might call “cool” — Kim Jong Il’s shades or Qaddafi’s threads and entourage — are folks we don’t want to hold up on a pedestal. Berlusconi’s joie de vivre is really just womanizing…not cool, and, true, Carla Bruni ups Sarkozy’s quotient, but can you really call a person cool if that coolness is solely derived from another person?
What about Ban Ki-moon? Admittedly, his rapping is just a gag, but isn’t that what “cool” really is, the confidence to have fun with oneself? Also, he does roll with Jay-Z.