I love your first line 'can't let a Hillary comment go unchallenged'
But my point is that NONE of these other women have put themselves quite in the firing line like Hillary has. It has to be credited as an achievement.
I lived for 11 years under Thatcher's prime ministership here. I detested virtually everthing she stood for, politically. But I do recognise she was a trail blazer and an amazing woman.
Hillary is a very good politician. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. She certianly did put herself in the firing line. I give her credit for that.
The problem I have with giving her the trailblazer moniker is that I don't think she deserves it. By the same token I don't think Obama deserves the trailblazer moniker either. If this were 1972 neither of them would have had a showball's chance in Hell of winning the WH. A lot of people blazed a trail for Hillary and Obama in order to make it a possibility that a woman or an AA man could win the WH in 2008.
I enjoyed your diary.
Still I beg to disagree on Thatcher. To me she was horrible as a human being. For one thing, she ruthlessly ordered the Belgrano to be sunk, which cost, if I remember rightly, nearly 2000 human lives.
Can one be horrible as a human being and amazing as a woman? (Unless on is an amazingly horrible woman...)
What does 'amazing woman' mean, actually?
All I have on this is the Wikipedia article but it looks like it was 323 people. I know that doesn't change your point.
You're right! I didn't remember rightly. There's no reason not to trust the Wikipedia article. Apparently there were about 1100 people ("Argies") on board when it sank, but more than 700 were rescued by Argentinian and Chilean ships.
Still as you say it doesn't change my point, which was, crudely speaking, that a female bastard is not worth more than a male bastard... (irrespective of whether you agree with me or not that sinking the Belgrano was a bastardly deed; and by the way we Frenchmen have not much reason to be proud that a French missile sank the Sheffield).
Point taken.
The Belgrano thing was horrible, but surely that was her acting as a politician. I don't think you can say she was a horrible human being as a result. The context is different, but was Truman a 'horrible human being' for ordering Nagasaki and Hiroshima? I don't think politics quite works this way, and things like 'perceived national interest' the 'safety of our troops' also weighs heavily. The personal isn't always political, and vice versa.
I think it would be hard to say that Thatcher set no example, blazed no trail - though she was very unfriendly to female competitors and promoted many fewer of them in her cabinet than her predecessors, or successors.
But there were things to be admired about her. The only one I can think of, apart from her symbolic role, is that she got Bosnia dead right, and proposed lifting the arms embargo and striking serb heavy weapons from 1992. Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved.
