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Peter_de_Blanc comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong
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This is true approximately to the extent that there has never been a truly benevolent person. Power anti-corrupts.
I don't understand your second sentence.
I believe that what he's saying is that with power, people show their true colors. Consciously or not, nice people may have been nice because it benefitted them to. The fact that there were too many penalties for not being nice when they didn't have as much power was a "corruption" of their behavior, in a sense. With the power they gained, the penalties didn't matter enough compared to the benefits.
Wow, you're really good at interpreting cryptic sentences!
I think "Elementary, dear Watson" was in order ;)
In favor of the "power just allows corrupt behavior" theory, Bueno de Mesquita offers two very nice examples of people who ruled two different states. One is Leopold of Belgium, who simultaneously ruled Belgium and the Congo. The other is Chiang Kai-shek, who sequentially ruled China and Taiwan, allegedly rather differently. (I heard him speak about these examples in this podcast. BdM, Morrow, Silverson, and Smith wrote about Leopold here, gated)