Bush, Musharraf, Ahmadinejad top least-trusted leaders list

Bush, Musharraf, Ahmadinejad top least-trusted leaders list

www.haaretz.com

U.S. President George W. Bush is ranked only slightly above the rulers of Pakistan and Iran as one of the least-trusted leaders in the world, a survey released on Monday showed.

The survey, carried out by WorldPublicOpinion.org in 20 countries around the world, found that no national leaders inspired wide confidence outside their own countries. But Bush, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ranked at the bottom, the polling showed.

Only 23 percent of people outside the United States had "a lot or some" confidence in Bush, compared to 22 percent for Ahmadinejad and 18 percent for Musharraf.

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I guess you could call this the "axis of deceit."

You'd expect firebrand leaders from unstable countries to top the list of those that the world doesn't trust. If you woke up from a seven-year coma, you'd be shocked by the results for the US, but then we've all lived through them, and Bush's world standing, at 23%, is only 7-8 points lower than his approval rating at home.

As the poll director notes:

"While the worldwide mistrust of George Bush has created a global leadership vacuum, no alternative leader has stepped into the breach," said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org.

www.haaretz.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 17-6-2008 by gottago]