There’s always been the feeling that a presidency or a prime ministership is a pretty tough gig; lots of stuff hitting the fan all the time and people like Mark Arbib and Bill Shorten always lurking around behind you.

Yet those who aspire to the highest office are prepared even to kiss babies, promise free beer and prostitute their most dearly-held principles in order to get gonged. Such single-minded dedication appears to indicate that top jobs are more of a doddle than we thought. If it was only the power they’re after it would be much easier to get it in spades as head of a drug cartel.

A close inspection of president and prime minister job descriptions reveals they are carefully framed to prevent incumbents from stuffing their countries. This is because the system sometimes allows ratbags to get elected who wouldn’t know a BER from a huge waste of money.

These ratbags invariably believe they know what they’re doing and so have the potential to cause untold damage to the nation. The trick is to make them believe they’re having they’re having a governmental effect while the bureaucrats carry on with business as usual.

Leaders like Kevin and Obama are a constant source of irritation because they don’t understand they’re not supposed to do much and insist on trying to do things in areas where their level of expertise is on a par with BP’s ability to plug oil spills.

One of the main fringe benefits accruing from national leadership status is an aura of power which women like Monica Lewinsky, Marilyn Monroe and Blanche d’Alpuget find quite irresistible.

What’s more the job seems to allow ample time for this benefit to be fully exploited. Indeed it appears likely that Bill Clinton, John Kennedy and Bob Hawke scarcely had time for anything else.

The top positions also seem to provide a huge amount of time for incumbents to indulge in a wide range of outrageous goings-on which help make them fortunes later on from selling their memoirs.

It’s a big advantage memoirs-wise if they have someone in their cabinet like Paul Keating or Gordon Brown who are continually slagging them off and trying to nick their job. It’s even better if they’re in a position like Kevin where the whole cabinet was slagging him off and then comprehensively threw him out.

Great leaders are identified by great quotes like ‘Ask not what your country can do for you’ and ‘Tear down this wall’ which are designed to get other people to do things as opposed to commiting themselves to doing anything. ‘Kevin 07’ was particularly apt because 08 was obviously a year too far.

Women in national leadership roles are a very different animals from men. Maggie Thatcher dug the miners into a very deep hole and kicked the Argies out of the Falklands within a week or two. This represents a lifetime’s work for people like George W and Kevin.

Men seem able immune to the aura of power acquired by female national leaders. So women are able to concentrate more on running the country free from the distractions of groupies like Mick Jagger and Tiger Woods.

It’s a shame that being a president or prime minister is such a great gig that it attracts people who could contribute much more usefully to the community in other fields.

Obama would have made an outstanding TV talk show host; Ahmadinejad is a natural prison warden, Julia’s a headmistress to the manner born and it’s an absolute tragedy that Kevin didn’t work overseas.