At least we can agree he's a dictator. I don't think he's a genius, I think his personal genius loci drives to keeping himself in power and some self aggrandizement, and this drove him to make very uninformed, poor choices.

Certainly I agree he would tend to believe his paid-for feed over the one he can tune into freely. I have been reading about Sorge, and the extent to which the centre refused to believe the edge operatives telling them about German intentions is just .. insane. So I see a strong parallel there. If you get enough of your yesmen saying "they are lying" it would be hard to say "yea.. but I think i will reflect on this lie" sometimes.