I have never been able to figure out a country that does not -- for any ideological reason -- take care of its own people. Although I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, I do think that a country in which the poor have enough to eat, health care, welfare as needed (yes, that takes definition) ends up with a better-fed, healthier, less angry and therefore less violent population.
A leader like Bush (or Premier Gordon Campbell in British Columbia, Canada) can end up with the poor being ill, isolated and angry.
Sure, I recognize these statements are simplistic. But what leader lets his country's infrastructure, schools, economy, employment rate -- and therefore its people -- go all to hell while spending billions on war?