best to make this exciting for the guy. i m just giving suggestions, all right? that s number one. number two, let s face it, the bar following the previous president was pretty low. all you have to do is show up and that say, putin, my man. just don t get left. up right, don t say putin is my guy. thirdly though, you can see we re doing diplomacy. meanwhile, we all know with the pull out in afghanistan and things that just happened with australia, the u.s. seems to still be going alone. and that s upsetting a lot of the allies. however, the one thing i will see is, we are, whether you like they are not, it s a military industrial complex. military is our main thing, that s what we do. and to turn this big tanker around is going to be slow. it s going to take time. and the fact that we re not currently in a war in afghanistan, i guess that is progress? i mean, again, setting the bar
putin on the top, i don t think putting putin on the top is not a i don t say putin is going to be on top. this what is the voting was. obama s been on top three out of the five years we ve done it. president of china was on top one year. there are lots of interesting stories on this list outside of the top ten. these are not all good people. the billionaire drug dealer is on the list, alchapa. dictator of north korea is on the list. to the point people who are less accountable, obama is accountable to an electorate. even president of china is to some degree accountable to the communist party. putin s manipulated the russian political system that he could stay in power until 2024. and you may say it s a declining power, but major energy state. that s all they ve got. they don t really have a proper economy because he s ruined the possible foundations of such an economy.
the editors did vote the way they did. he s the only head of state that can allow pictures of himself shirtless on horseback to be all over the world. i think religious figures are also judged on how much financial power they have. it s a preposterous joke. and we should treat it with the contempt it thoroughly deserves. we apologize here. david gergen. just saying if you have a different kind of judging, let s say the top ten thugs in the world then vad minute putin could well be on the top of that list. the problem you have with this list is, let s take you take this kind of survey about how people exercised power in the second world war. probably hitler then stalin then franklin roosevelt and maybe churchill. look at the value that is go into a survey. on top of a demographically dying, really running russia
contempt it thoroughly deserves. we apologize here. david gergen. just saying if you have a different kind of judging, let s say the top ten thugs in the world then vladimir putin could well be on the top of that list. the problem you have with this list is, let s take you take this kind of survey about how people exercised power in the second world war. probably hitler then stalin then franklin roosevelt and maybe churchill. look at the value that is go into a survey. on top of a demographically dying, really running russia horribly, putin, against the president of the united states with the biggest military more than anybody else put together. it s just obvious it s an obvious trawl. but if you re sitting there as the editor of the magazine i bet they do sell magazines. they do. he wouldn t be on here. i don t think that putting
usually gdp. corporate leaders that s revenue. and for religious leaders, it s their finances. we look at how many followers or people they have power over. so for the pope, 20% of the world s population is catholic. we also look at are they powerful in multiple spheres. so somebody like mayor bloomberg who s a politician, a billionaire, a major philanthropist and media mogul is powerful in many different ways. then we look at whether or not they are active in using their power. and we have eight of of our editors vote on everybody, candidate list of about 150 people. then we rank them. and this is how they came out this year. my guess is why that putin is on top probably had something to do with the timing of the voting. the vote was didn t during the government shutdown, right after the showdown over syria. and that would be my assumption. but i can t tell you exactly why