Teflon character
Encyclopedia
Teflon is a nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

 given to persons, particularly in politics, to whom criticism
Criticism
Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another . To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval.Another meaning of...

 does not seem to stick. The term comes from Teflon
Polytetrafluoroethylene
Polytetrafluoroethylene is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that finds numerous applications. PTFE is most well known by the DuPont brand name Teflon....

, the brand name by DuPont of a "non-stick" chemical used on cookware.

Others

  • It was applied to mafia boss John Gotti
    John Gotti
    John Joseph Gotti, Jr was an American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Gotti grew up in poverty. He and his brothers turned to a life of crime at an early age...

    , called The Teflon Don, who managed to escape being charged or convicted of crimes for over a decade, despite being the very public leader of a New York crime family.
  • Former British
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     Prime Minister Tony Blair
    Tony Blair
    Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

     was often referred to in the press as Teflon Tony.

  • Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

    , 40th President of the United States
    President of the United States
    The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

    , was nicknamed the Teflon President, after scandals surrounding members of his staff seemed to have no effect on Reagan's popularity with the public.

  • Ben Caspit, a reporter for the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv, once said that then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon
    Ariel Sharon
    Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....

     "drags around a paltry list of achievements, but the failures don't stick to him. The father of the nation, the ultimate Teflon, is sailing calmly toward a second term. Who would have believed it?".

  • Ralph Klein, long-time premier of the Canadian
    Canada
    Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

     province of Alberta, was often referred to as a "Teflon" Premier.

  • Irish
    Republic of Ireland
    Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

     Taoiseach
    Taoiseach
    The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...

     Bertie Ahern
    Bertie Ahern
    Patrick Bartholomew "Bertie" Ahern is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 26 June 1997 to 7 May 2008....

     (known as the Teflon Taoiseach) as scandal after scandal failed to have any lasting effect on him, until he was forced to resign in 2008.

  • Teflon Johnny has been coined to describe Prime Minister John Howard
    John Howard
    John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....

    . Other Australian public figures that have been called "teflon coated" include Queensland Premier, Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen and Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

  • Russian President and later Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
    Vladimir Putin
    Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

     has been referred to as a "Teflon leader", although the 2008 Russian financial crisis has begun to affect his image among the public.

  • Spanish
    Spanish people
    The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

     Formula One
    Formula One
    Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

     racing driver and double World Champion Fernando Alonso
    Fernando Alonso
    Fernando Alonso Díaz is a Spanish Formula One racing driver and a two-time World Champion, who is currently racing for Ferrari....

     earned the nickname Teflonso following his exoneration from involvement in the Renault F1
    Renault F1
    Lotus Renault GP, formerly the Renault F1 Team, is a British Formula One racing team. The Oxfordshire-based team can trace its roots back through the Benetton team of the late 1980s and 1990s to the Toleman team of the early 1980s. Renault had also competed in various forms since , before taking...

     Crashgate controversy.

  • Ma Ying-jeou
    Ma Ying-jeou
    Ma Ying-jeou is the 12th term and current President of the Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan, and the Chairman of the Kuomintang Party, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party. He formerly served as Justice Minister from 1993 to 1996, Mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006, and Chairman...

    , President of Taiwan
    Taiwan
    Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

    , has also been widely described with this metaphor as a person on which nothing seems to stick, and criticisms, scandals and mess-ups were easily and frequently shrugged off. Although the trademark "Teflon" is generally not used among the Chinese-speaking population to describe the product as a whole so it's not used to describe Ma either, people do describe Ma using the nickname that the society actually uses to describe Teflon-enhanced-cookware - a "non-stick pan" ("bu zhan guo")).

  • Teflon Tim has been assigned to an American Idol contestant in its 9th season.

  • In leaked US diplomatic cables
    United States diplomatic cables leak
    The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...

     it was revealed that German chancellor Angela Merkel
    Angela Merkel
    Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...

     is called Angela 'Teflon' Merkel by the staff of the Embassy of the United States in Berlin
    Embassy of the United States in Berlin
    The Embassy of the United States in Berlin maintains diplomatic relations and represents United States interests in dealing with the German government. The U.S. Embassy in Germany has not always been in Berlin.-1797–1930:...

    because criticism just bounces off her.


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK