[Skybird]

What good, real statesmen there have been in a far away past, is not that important. The important question is: why don't we have any today? Not a single name there is left today whom I would call that: a statesman. Instead we have attention-craving career-managers playing Diplomacy, and political party oligarchies that have completely hijacked and assassinated democracy and have put their own power interests before state's reason and the interest of the community. It's a total mess.

Can't say I know all US presidents there have been, but time and again I stumble over the quotes by Jefferson, and I think Eisenhower was a very good one, too, often a bit understimated. He was able to form bridges between Reps and Dems, instead of polarising them, and he had an indepoth knopwledge from first hand of the military and the interlinkiung between industry and military. Also, he did not want to become president, and had no craving for it, which again speaks for him. Both Roosevelts also get my positive attention.

In Germany, to me and many other Germans the choice is clear: Helmut Schmidt probabaly was the most clever and truthful chancellor we ever had - a bit arrogant, but Hanseatic in the best meaning fo the word, a Prussian- influenced officer with a stroing sense of duty (he even dared to reject the Bundesverdienstkreuz, Germany'S highest order, after he had left office, because he said that he did his duty, and fulfilling one's duty must not be rewarded). Even while now being in his 90s, he is still held in high esteem as one of the highest moral authorities in this country - and one of the most intelligent analysts of German and global politics we have.
Richard von Weizsäcker also is on my mind, an educated, decent gentleman from a family that has brought up several bright minds known in the world of science, politics, arts. Money and wealth was not what brought Schmidt and von Weizsäcker to ranks and honours.