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Crazy, stupid or downright hopeless; politicians often don’t garner much respect. But they’re not all so terrible. Political fiend Josh Hercus considers the most badass leaders of them all.

Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth President of the United States and quite possibly the manliest man ever. According to Wikipedia, “Roosevelt's achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician.” He was also a champion boxer and had a black belt in jujitsu. But let’s just focus a bit on his political career.
 
Despite casually winning a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and keeping lions, bears and hyenas as White House pets, probably the most badass thing was what happened to him while campaigning in 1912. As he was about to give a speech in Wisconsin, a saloonkeeper shot him, causing a bullet to be lodged in his chest. Now, let’s stop and think for a second what most world leaders would do if they were shot in the chest. Fall down in pain? Speed off to hospital? Die? Naturally, Roosevelt decided that those sounded like lame ideas and went for a much cooler alternative.
 
Instead, he declined to go to the hospital and proceeded with the speech, opening with “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose...The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.” He then proceeded to talk for 90 minutes. Critic suspects that near the end of his speech, he saw Death in the corner of his eye and gave him the one-finger salute.
 
Winston Churchill
Of course we all know Churchill’s contribution to the Allies’ victory in the Second World War, but what you might be unfamiliar with was his distinguished military career. During his various postings he acted as a war correspondent for several newspapers. On one occasion, he was sent to cover the Second Anglo-Boer War for the Mornington Post where he was invited to attach himself to troops accompanying an armoured train. The train was ambushed and derailed by Boer rebels but Churchill remained as cool as a cumber and reportedly told the troops, "Keep cool, men. This will be interesting for my paper." But that’s only where his badassary begins. He was then taken prisoner where he escaped a month later in a story that was basically like an old-timey version of the television series Prison Break but without the shitty romantic component. It made him a minor hero back in England.
 
Later on, Churchill served as a lieutenant-colonel during the First World War with the esteemed Grenadier Guards. Apparently, he wasn’t too fond of being a pussy and sitting safely at HQ because there were only allowed to drink tea. However, alcohol was permitted in the trenches so he suggested to the colonel that he should go down to the front line. That’s commitment. He’d run the risk of getting shot just to get OTP.
 
What truly separated Churchill’s badassery from others was his style. He enjoyed the finer things in life. Drinking excessively, partying hard, hating communism, Cuban cigars, kicking the shit out of Nazis, verbally destroying people and dressing like a champion. On top of everything he became an accomplished writer, historian and artist. What couldn’t he do?
 
Vladimir Putin
As the former President of Russia and the country’s current Prime Minister, Putin’s badassary is only outdone by the coldness of his glare. Before entering politics, Putin had a 17-year career with the KGB back in the Soviet days as a spy. He could probably kill you in dozens of different ways. And one of those ways is judo. Putin also happens to be a sixth dan black belt in judo and has won several championships. He’s even co-authored a book on it.
 
When he’s not scaring the shit out of people, Putin enjoys dominating nature. When forest fires raged in Russia last year, he co-piloted the fire-fighting planes to put out the inferno himself. In 2008, Putin proved that he was superior to a Siberian tiger. Reuters reports that, “Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.” No witty comment required – that’s just plain awesome.
 
This year Kyrgyzstan honoured Putin by naming one of the country’s highest peaks after him. Even then, at least one lawmaker is worried that Putin might actually be offended by the decision stating that, “We should give the Russian politician's name not to a 4,000-meter [13,000-foot] mountain but to a taller one, otherwise [Putin] might be offended that we did not value him highly enough.” That’s right, they felt he was so god damn badass that they decided to name a mountain after him and even then they’re worried that it might not be good enough. Your move, Obama.