Only Sane Man/Real Life: Difference between revisions

*** Seward would later prove to be the Only Sane Man in the cabinet of Lincoln's successor, [[Andrew Johnson]]. While Johnson and the other, Radical Republican members of his cabinet spent most of the administration at each other's throats, Seward was the one guy actually managing to get some stuff done, including purchasing Alaska from the Russians (at the time nicknamed "Seward's Folly," but in retrospect something of a masterstroke).

* Charles I of Austria-Hungary, who became [[The Emperor|Emperor]] right in the middle of [[World War One|a war he didn't want to fight]]. He proposed a "peace without recriminations" in which all parties would simply lay down their weapons and go home to rebuild their shattered countries. The Allies simply scoffed at the proposal, the Germans were furious about Charles' plan to "abandon" them. Charles was then [[It Got Worse|deposed]] at the end of the war. He tried to [[Rightful King Returns|regain the Hungarian throne]], but the Allies would never have allowed it, and the [[Regent for Life|sitting ruler]] of Hungary didn't want trouble from them, even though it meant breaking his former oaths of loyalty to Charles. In the end, Charles died [[Impoverished Patrician|in poverty]], [[The Exile|exiled to]] the Portuguese island of Madeira. And after the war, [[It Got Worse]]. For everything he had done, he was Beatified by [[The Pope|Pope John Paul II]], and he will probably be [[Patron Saint|Canonised a saint]] before long.

* Zhou Enlai was widely regarded as the [[Only Sane Man]] amid the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, quietly working to save as many artists, intellectuals and historical sites as he could.

* John Keeling, one of the judges at the March 10, 1662 witch trial of Amy Denny and Rose Cullender. While his superior, Matthew Hale, and most of the rest of the town were willing to convict the other two on hatred, and the evidence of children and people who their husbands had owed money to, Keeling (who oddly, was generally regarded as a [[Jerkass]] [[Hanging Judge]]) went out of his way to ensure that the trial involved things like evidence, and cross-examination. He uncovered many of the petty grievances against the women, and suggested that the deaths of various livestock were probably due to natural causes. He forced the star witnesses, a pair of girls who went into fits whenever they approached Amy and Rose to wear blindfolds, and when this lead to their having fits whenever they approached anyone they were ''told'' was one of the defendants, implied that maybe the girls were making it up. He refused to convict on "the words of children" and his general attitude seems to have been one of "She's a witch huh? [[Sarcasm Mode|Sure she is]]." Records show that Keeling had [[Hope Spot|all but turned the jury around]], when his superior, [[Jerkass|Matthew Hale]] (who happened to be friends with the father of one of the witnesses) basically told them it was their duty as jurors and Christians to convict, resulting in both women being hanged.