Iceland's President Clears Up Pizza Controversy

In case you were terrified that Democracy was truly crumbling on an international level upon reading that the president of Iceland would ban pineapple as a pizza topping if he could, you have nothing to fear. Following a wild reaction across the Internet (as his answers from a Q&A session at a high school in Akureyri went viral) President Guðni Jóhannesson released a statement clarifying his comments as an attempt to clear up the "Pizza Controversy." Though, to be fair, he'd probably be canonized by pizza purists/Twitter users everywhere who find the idea of a pineapple mixed with their pizza to be not just crusty, but sacrilegious.

His statement (posted in both English and Icelandic) via Facebook read:

I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don´t like. I would not want to live in such a country. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.

A former history professor, Iceland's current president is generally considered by his constituents to be a Cool Dude™ — elected last June, his love of pizza has been well-documented along with his high approval ratings (as high as 97 percent, according to Iceland Magazine), charitable giving, and LGBT positivity.

It seems that the president will walk away from these comments with his reputation in tact — as pronouncing a deep hatred for a bizarre pizza topping choice probably doesn't really warrant any kind of statement (wonderful as it may be) on executive overreach.

And the so-called Pizza Controversy certainly isn't as scary as a leader who signs orders without fully understanding them, feuds with the judiciary branch, or calls the press "the enemies" of the people.

Yeah, that'd be scary. At least Iceland's president isn't stunting like that. Amirite?

But, despite his awful (and in my opinion immoral) opinions about putting seafood on pizza (ew), the Icelandic Prez does have a point: No one wants to live in that kind of country with that kind of power-hungry leader.

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