Mike, what makes reading well-written and well-documented biographies of leaders so aggravating to me is they're usually not hagiographies but of the celebrated with all their warts and frailties. We keep looking for saints.

In the home of a powerful national politician with illuminated autographed pictures and gifts from dictators and charlatans displayed everywhere, I asked him if he wasn't embarrassed by their presence, they were such sobs.

"Kingsley, anyone who is doing anything anywhere is always sailing close to the wind."