Sorry I did not study your links very closely but I believe that yes you are on a right path, anybody with a strong statesmanship competencies would certainly qualify as a "smart" person.So, if I understand you correctly, Prince Metternich was a real life "smart" person and Colonel Kurtz a fictional one?
It does not have to be about political leaders though as "power dynamics games" are played to death in just about every US sitcom.