Sticks and Stones: The Top 5 Cablegate Insults

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REUTERS/Max Rossi

The latest WikiLeaks dump includes a quarter million state department documents and almost as many diplo-disses. Which world leader was called a “flabby old chap?”  Read on to find out.  (Hint: It’s not Berlusconi.)

1. Who’s The Boss? Medvedev is president, Putin the PM. But, according to a not-so-diplomatic cable from the American embassy in Moscow, the former “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman.” Ha!

(See Wikileaks’ Julian Assange talk about history’s top leaks)

2. Dr. Dumb Zimbabwe’s ruler, Robert Mugabe, displays “deep ignorance on economic issues” and foolishly believes that “his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand.” Perhaps, but how could 18 doctorates be wrong?

3. Party Politics Silvio Berlusconi is “feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader,” notes an American charge d’affaires in Rome. Also, he likes the ladies. A lot. (But we already knew that.)

(Read ‘The WikiLeaks Dump: More Secrecy = Fewer Secrets.’)

4. Dissing the Dictator Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s odd, elderly, enfeebled ruler, is a pretty easy target. But that didn’t stop a U.S. source from referring to him as a “flabby old chap.”

5. Dr. Strangelove Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is “strange,” according to a dispatch from Tripoli.  Yes, true. And he gets Botox.