Peggy Noonan gives a rave review to the Margaret Thatcher movie today, then asks this:
The left in America has largely thrown in the towel on Ronald Reagan, but in Britain Thatcher-hatred remains fresh. Why?
While you’re debating the truth of that, I’ll tell you that she ascribes it to sexism:
Because she was a woman. Because women in politics are always by definition seen as presumptuous: They presume to lead men. When they are as bright as the men they’re disliked by the men, and when they’re brighter and more serious they’re hated. Mrs Thatcher’s very presence was an insult to the left because it undermined the left’s insistence that only leftism and its protection of the weak and disadvantaged would allow women to rise. She rose without them while opposing what they stood for. On the other hand, some of the Tory men around her had been smacked on the head by her purse often enough to wish for revenge. What better revenge than to fail to fully stand up for her to posterity?
The lefty part of that is conservatism’s “liberals are the real sexists” boilerplate, the nonsense that was the right’s excuse for pretending to warm to Hillary Clinton in early 2008. (We allegedly hated Hillary, but she got 18 million votes from all us sexists. Hey, how’s that Michele Bachmann campaign working out for you righties?)
The implication here is that we on the left would be much angrier at Ronald Reagan if he’d been a woman.
Nahhh. If our anger has faded, it’s for one simple reason: the bastards who’ve followed him have been so much worse. The Gingrich Congress? The teabag House? And, in between, Bush and Cheney? In retrospect, Reagan seems like a beta version of these lunatics. His presidency seems like an out-of-town tryout of the full-blown craziness to come.
Really, Peg, it’s simple. Don’t overthink it.
(By the way, here’s Steve M.’s Rule: Who’s the worst president in American history? Answer: the next Republican president.)
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)