It's a very interesting and well done post. I will comment, however, that "before 1991, like a generation or two back, politicians or statesmen were admired and their credibility and leadership was not put in doubt," is a false statement. The magical/cursed time when politicians weren't questioned, doubted, dragged through the mud? Never happened. Wasn't true in the old Greek democracy, wasn't true the second the USA and then France reinvented it.