ELL Season 7 Review

Maybe it's like retiring in the emotion following a tough fight, but the Evil Leaders League has had a good run. All good things must come to an end, although it seems all evil leaders go on for decades. What gives? Anyway. we've had a good run. The ELL ousted Musharraf from power, no small task. We were instrumental in Omar Bongo's death. The regret is that we couldn't depose or kill (not CIA style, mind you) more of these evil bastards. But taking down two evil leaders is pretty good for an obscure website devoted to meshing politics and anal warts jokes.

The Champion - Than Shwe 4-3 (2-0)
Sure, the Burmese ruler of Myanmar is evil. He's killed protesting Buddhist monks. He refused international aid for his suffering people in the wake of a devastating cyclone. He does not allow dissents. And he's secretly attempting to build a nuclear program. But none of those reasons are why he won this season. The real reason is that Ellen Page really hates Than Shwe, and I appreciate her dry wit..

Check out the best out-of-context lines from this season in the Highlights section.

The Challengers
Hamid Karzai 5-2 (1-1) - Bush's boy has been Obama's headache. Karzai has always been ineffective and has allowed corruption, but this season he upped the ante by threatening to join the Taliban.
Omar al-Bashir 6-1 (0-1) - A genocide has only so much shelf life. At some point, it becomes yesterday's news without help from a highly-paid PR firm.
Kim Jong-Il 5-2 (0-1) - He must've been picked on as a child, 'cuz he sure relishes the role of instigating things. Maybe the kids didn't like his hair, sunglasses, or autocratic personality.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 3-4 - If rhetoric was evil action, he'd be Muhammad Ali. As it is, he's Andrew Golata.

The Relegated
Teodoro Obiang 3-4 - When you live in an oil rich country, people tend to let your evil quirks slide.
Silvio Berlusconi 2-5 - 3-time prime minister, corruption allegations, extra-marital affairs, the mafia, statue in the face- doesn't make for much of an evil leader, but it's enough for a hell of a sitcom.
Evo Morales 0-7 - Latin America's cutest indigenous leader is a leftist, socialist, Marxist. But it's 2010, this side of Pat Boone, who really cares any more?


What have we learned from this seven season exercise? Perhaps it's that there are leaders who perform evil acts and their biggest punishment is a stern scolding. Perhaps it's that the human mind seems to be able to justify any evil. Perhaps it's that the U.S. mistakes truly despicable leaders and those who pose little to no threat but have competing interests with the U.S. Perhaps it's that Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov produces more milk a year from his giant man boobs than all of his country's goats combined.

Maybe we haven't really learned anything. At the very least, we hope you chuckled out loud at least once during these seven glorious seasons.