The Obama self-promotional commemorative photos

President Obama has joined other quirky national leaders, and former ones with his habit of inserting his image into important events.  The moon landing was commemorated by the White House with a special photo of the President looking soulfully at the moon, the Rosa Parks anniversary with an image of him looking soulfully into the distance in the bus she refused to stand for whites in.  His latest effort is to commemorate the Pearl Harbour attack with a photo of himself looking soulfully into the distance at the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour:

But he is not the only one.  Vlad Putin, probably one of the saner ones with image fascination likes to take his shirt off for photos.  Here is a gay one of him on a horse that looks ready for the knackers yard:

It is somewhat reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone's movies where the bad guys capture him and force him at gunpoint to take his shirt off, Sly of course, was always rather reticent of letting the public see his big muscles.

Another really odd one was the late Kim Jong Il of North Korea who liked to pose for pictures of himself looking at his nation's seminal achievements.  Here is a memorable one of him studying an empty bottle:

But when it comes to self promotion, you just can't surpass our own former numero uno Kevin Rudd, master of the 'selfie'.  Kev was so good that he could post selfies of himself taking a selfie; it just doesn't get any better than that.  Here is Kevvie in full Shakespearean "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" (or perhaps, "If i cut me ... ) mode, with his celebrated selfie of his great dramatic shaving cut:

The common thread in all of this is that these people are all authoritarian, all are self absorbed, all feel they are born to rule, and all are bloody idiots and screw-ups.