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Our Presidents Are Different: Difference between revisions
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* Averted in ''[[Golgo 13]]'': whenever the US government hires the eponymous assassin, the president is... whichever president was in office at the time the story was written. (The Clinton administration hired him ''twice''.) They're also drawn surprisingly accurately, and portrayed in a fair light. Hell of a change from the [[Eagle Land|usual anime presentation.]]
* [[Meaningful Name|George]] [[Satire|Reitmann]], President of [[One-Letter Name|"A" Country]] from ''[[Mai-chan's Daily Life|Mai-Chan's Daily]]''... [[Gorn|WAIT]][[Complete Monster|NO]]--
* In the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog The Movie|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' OVA, the President of South Island is both a Target (he's held hostage at the beginning, and has to be rescued from a burning aircraft at the end) and a Buffoon. (That aircraft he had to be rescued from? He crashed it.)
* [[Gurren Lagann]]'s second half {{spoiler|makes Simon the leader of Kamina City, who rules as Commander-in-Chief Action, of course.}}
** {{spoiler|Rossiu would be President Strawman, not even aware that he's taking his former village leader's tactics down a destructive path, though it's made clear to the audience. Though not a strawman for any real life politics, his defining characteristic is that he's acting out of an ideology completely at odds with the series' themes.}}
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{{quote|'''Secret Service Agent #1:''' And we're supposed to be guarding ''him''?
'''Secret Service Agent #2:''' Yeah! But just seeing him makes me feel... ''safer'' somehow. }}
*** President Rogers ends up saving his country from the Red Skull one last time, [[Heroic Sacrifice|but at great cost]].
** Then there was that other ''[[What If]]'' in which Cap was really the Red Skull in a [[Body Surf|cloned body]]. And was elected more times than Nixon in ''[[Watchmen]]''. [[President Evil|Given that he's a frickin' Nazi war criminal, do you really have to ask?]]
* Mad Jim Jaspers of the [[Marvel Universe]] is one of the few non-American President Action-characters (in this, as an Evil Prime Minister Action of the United Kingdom). His [[Reality Warper|Reality Warping]] powers make him one of the most powerful characters in the entire [[The Multiverse|multiverse]], although his Lunacy (as suggested by his name) reduce his effectiveness somewhat.
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* ''Zenith'''s Peter St. John is a Government Minister and the secret ruler of the UK, and sits somewhere between President Personable, President Scheming and [[Magnificent Bastard]]. He freely uses [[Mind Control]], [[Telepathy]] and deception to get and stay in power, because he feels only his genius can do a good job of running things. Trouble is, from all appearances, he's ''right''. He's arguably the real "hero" of the story, not [[Super Dickery|Super Dick]] Zenith; He drags Zenith into the [[Superhero]] business and makes him stay despite his whining, he saves the world from Master Man's inner monster, he tricks the Lloigor into {{spoiler|getting trapped in a [[Lotus Eater Machine]] for all eternity}}, etc.
* In [[Marvel Comics|Marvel's]] [[The New Universe]], the [[Villain with Good Publicity]] Philip Voigt becomes POTUS with the help of his mind-control powers. He probably fits the Action, Scheming and Evil subtypes, at least.
* At other times in The Marvel Universe, the President just happens to be whoever's in office at the time, with varying degrees of any of the above-mentioned stereotypes. In Uncanny X-Men alone, we see [[Jimmy Carter]] (during the Dark Phoenix Saga), [[Ronald Reagan]] (in follow-on stories to [[Days of Future Past]]), and George H W Bush (in X-Men #1). In a discussion board thread, [[Chris Claremont]], talking about how his new X-Men Forever simultaneously follows on from X-Men #1 yet is set in 2009, essentially said "[[MST3K Mantra|Assume that the gent sitting in the White House was always BarackObama, or perhaps GeorgeWBush, depending on when exactly the story takes place]]." One assumes that this also includes the [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|fact that there was still a Soviet Union in X-Men #1...]]
* The ''[[Squadron Supreme]]'' limited series started with Kyle Richmond, a [[Captain Ersatz]] of [[Batman]], as the President of the United States. After being mind-controlled by an alien being to conquer the Earth, he steps down from power... then [[It Got Worse|things get worse.]]
* In ''[[Superman]]/[[Batman]] Generations'', Hal Jordan becomes President in the 1980s. While in this version of reality Hal never became [[Green Lantern]], he's still a President Action. {{spoiler|After his term ends, he does end up becoming GL in order to fight Sinestro, who is out to kill anyone who wore or was capable of wearing the ring.}}
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* In ''[[Salt]]'', both the American President Lewis and the Russian President Matveyev are President Targets.
* ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'', based on a novel by Carl Sagan, features an appearance by an unmodified [[Bill Clinton]]. Almost. Creative editing of press conference footage, combined with judicious use of voice impersonators and body doubles, gave the appearance that the President was participating in the events of the film. White House staff were not amused.
* ''[[Under Siege]]'' begins with President George HW Bush giving the ship its sendoff, though he does not participate in the main action of the film.
* President Barbara Adams in ''Whoops Apocalypse'' is a President Minority and President Focus Group. British PM Sir Mortimer Chris is a Prime Minister Lunatic (his policies include creating new jobs by pushing employed people off cliffs).
* Ex-President Monroe "Eagle" Cole in "Welcome to Mooseport". He's comes across as a mixture of a President Personable and a President [[Mary Sue]]; a nice, grandfatherly charismatic man, so beloved by people that he retired with an 85% rating of approval (the highest FDR got was 84%), so popular that even a really small town like Mooseport knows him well (although it is his hometown as well). Also, he describes himself as "the most environmentally conscious president since Teddy Roosevelt". Nevertheless, at the same time, he's revealed to be an moderate President Jerkass who jokes about getting his adviser beaten up for not succeeding in his tasks, is arrogant, despised by his ex-wife, dates with the beloved one of his opponent running for Mayor, and plays it dirty when it comes to golf. By the end of the movie, President [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] probably sums him up, however.
* [[Americathon]]'s Chet Roosevelt is President Personable to an annoying degree. In his speech, he finished saying to the people, "This is the President and I love you." and when he got sworn in, he hugged the Justice of the Peace.
* In a rare instance where President Target is blended with President Iron, ''[[Dreamscape]]'''s president defies his own advisers to pursue nuclear disarmament treaties, spurred on by nightmares about [[World War III]]. Unable to shake his resolve, the [[Big Bad]] resorts to an attempted assassination using the film's dream-penetration technology.
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* Lancelot R. Gilligrass is the President Buffoon in [[Roald Dahl]]'s novel ''Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator''. He has a Vice-President Iron in the person of Miss Tibbs, his childhood nanny.
* The [[Dan Brown]] novel ''[[Deception Point]]'' revolves around a stunning scientific discovery and its implications in the upcoming presidential election. However, the two candidates are probably some of the most over-the-top examples in this page:
** The President in office, Zach Herney, goes beyond President Personable into what could be described as Saint President: he insists on having NASA be funded by the federal government instead of the intelligence community to avoid its purpose being corrupted despite the billions of dollars in losses that entails; refuses to have evidence of his opponent's indiscretions be made public so that the American public doesn't lose its faith in its politicians (HA!) and when a massive conspiracy involving the aforementioned discovery that would otherwise cause devastating consequences to his reputation comes to light, he tells the entire truth on national television. One even wonders how the hell someone like that managed to succeed in politics in the first place.
** By contrast, Herney's opponent, Senator Sedgewick Sexton is a Presidential Candidate Evil of the highest order: he has had affairs for most of his married life; used his wife's death in an accident to further his political career, both financially and as a means to gain support; when questioned about his stance in same-sex marriages he thinks to himself that if he were in charge "the faggots wouldn't even have the right to vote;" he is in cahoots with several private aerospace companies who illegally fund his campaign so that Sexton can dismantle NASA and sell it to them; and worst of all, was willing to ''let his own daughter die'' just so he could release evidence that could potentially destroy Herney, with the added bonus of her "cementing [his] sympathy vote".
* The premise of [[Fletcher Knebel]]'s [[Night Of Camp David]] is the question of how to deal with a President Lunatic.. or is he?
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{{quote|I can hear you saying, "Oh yeah, Mr. Smartass? Well, what kind of leader would ''you'' be?" The answer is, I'd be a terrible leader. I'd be such an inadequate leader that within a matter of days the United States would rank significantly below Belize as a world power. But at least I'd try to be an ''interesting'' leader.}}
* In ''Why Not Me?'', Al Franken portrayed himself as a Corrupt President Playboy and [[Adam Westing|much more of a jerk than he really is]].
* ''[[Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter]]''. One guess as to what kind of president this is.
* The unnamed President in the ''[[Illuminatus]]''-trilogy believes himself to be the President Iron, but in actuality he's straddling the line between President Buffoon and President Lunatic in his incessant drug addiction and willingness to start a nuclear war over a tiny Pacific island possibly going Communist.
** The unnamed General Secretary of the Soviet Union in the ''[[Illuminatus]]''-trilogy believes himself to be the Premier Iron, but in actuality he's straddling the line between Premier Buffoon and Premier Lunatic in his incessant drug addiction and willingness to start a nuclear war over a tiny Pacific island possibly going Communist.
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* In the ''[[Carrera's Legions|Carreras Legions]]'' series, the president of Balboa before he was tossed out in the next election was a President Corrupt.
* In a variant not listed above, the president from ''[[Snow Crash]]'', while technically a President Corrupt, probably ought to rate as a President ''Loser'': he holds office at a time when federal authority has diminished so catastrophically that nearly all of the current United States has been sold off to extraterritorial corporations. Upon meeting him, Y.T. doesn't even have a clue who he is, or care once he tells her.
* Zaphod Beeblebrox was chosen as President of the [[Douglas Adams|Hitchhiker's Guide]] galaxy, specifically ''because'' he's a natural for President Buffoon (with a side order of Playboy, Scheming and Personable), so would distract attention away from anyone holding genuine authority.
* Although a senator rather than a president, Evangel McDowell of the web-novel ''[[Domina]]'' is a President Action. He helps fight off a horde of zombies and organize the survivors.
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* President David Palmer of ''[[24|Twenty Four]]'' was President Personable who had a habit of being a President Target every now and then. {{spoiler|And he succumbs to it in season five}}. President Charles Logan was [[President Evil]] with a bit of [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] at first.
** Palmer was also the first black President Minority, at least on a well-known scale. It's mentioned a bit in Season One, but becomes utterly irrelevant (as it should be) after then.
** Palmer had a tendency to stray into President Mary Sue territory occasionally.
*** [[President Minority|President Allison Taylor]] looks like a sweet, middle-aged lady (she is, after all, played by Cherry Jones). '''Do not let this fool you.''' President Taylor ''will not budge'' once she has made up her mind about something... she's an [[Iron Lady]] and thus [[President Iron]] personified.
{{quote|'''President Taylor:''' "I want that sonofabitch ''found''."}}
** And now President Hassan of [[Hollywood Atlas|Kamistan]] has gotten in on the action, mostly as President Target but now edging into {{spoiler|President Action territory after ''saving Jack Bauer.''}}
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* In ''[[Justice League Crisis On Two Earths]],'' the League visits a mirror universe where their heroes are bad guys, and their villains, good guys. The president in this world is Slade Wilson, also known in the main universe as frikkin' ''Deathstroke the Terminator.''
** In the ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "A Better World", the [[Alternate Universe]] where Luthor became [[President Evil]] briefly showed his replacement: an incredibly meager President Focus Group that bends to the Justice Lord's every order (his only objection to keeping elections from being held was that they were a tradition ''like football and Macey's parade''), who Justice Lord Superman likely personally appointed.
* In ''[[Totally Spies]]'', one episode has world leaders of multiple nations including Malaysia, Japan and the United States all become President Targets and replaced with [[Evil Twin]] cyborg copies who turn national landmarks into crazy and dangerous theme park attractions.
* President Man from ''[[Invader Zim]]'' is [[Cloudcuckoolander|a mix of President Buffoon and President Lunatic]].
** Considering the [[Crapsack World|setting]] of the series, this is probably the best they could hope for.
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[[Category:Our Tropes Are Different]]
[[Category:Our Presidents Are Different]]
[[Category:Badass in Charge]]
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