extraordinarily accomplished woman, of incisive wit and remarkable influence.

I guess this is what seperates progressives from conservatives. A progressive writer can praise jeane kirkpatrick after her death without mentioning who and what she used her extrodianry accomplishments, incisive wit and remarkable influence to advance.

Well, expel me from the progressive ranks – it won’t be the first time. This awful woman and her equally awful master – Reagan – were the architects of mass crimes in Central America.
The wicked witch of the east is dead. Well dead.

Evron Kirkpatrick was a U of Minnesota Political Science Professor who essentially found and mentored Hubert in the 1930’s. He was a quite small man with a milktoast personality, but he was also of some prestige in the Discipline. (Yale in the early 30’s). He has been dead for some years. Jeane was essentially a stay-at-home mom who used her momma time to get her PhD in Poli Sci, work for Hubert, and learn the skills of cat-fighting political enforcer inside the party. She was an anti-Stalinist who adopted Stalinist methods. She had been sympathetic to Joe McCarthyism in the 50’s — and kept up her war well into the 60’s — in fact in 1968 she accused those of us supporting Gene of being unreconstructed Stalinists.

Jeane Kirkpatrick was anything but a Feminist. It was in about this period that some of us in the party started wondering why we only had one woman in the state legislature, and none on city council, and women hardly had a fair shot at party offices. Women were expected to run campaigns from behind the scenes, lick the envelopes, and not have issues. Jeane, of course, as a hard line anti-Stalinist could have them — but no one else. The year our slate defeated her slate was also the year we put in the platform equal representation for women in party offices. I particularly remember a cat fight she had on a convention floor with our one and only woman State Legislature that was particularly bloody. Jeane’s style was to have these fights, and then go out and undercut the opponent — in this case, she worked against the Legislator in the fall election. I am fairly certain Karl Rove picked up some of his tactics from her.

When Evron and Jeane went to DC and she began to play on the national scene, virtually everyone I knew just said, Thank God — we’re rid of her. In fact the DFL won both houses of the Legislature after they left, and we no longer had Jeane as the Ideological Enforcer doing damage to our candidates. And yep, we elected good progressives, and in the 70’s and 80’s did good progressive politics. A few years ago she was in town for a speech, and in an interview ripped Wellstone from one end to the other — she had seen this Ideological tendency back in the 60’s and the bad Wellstone was it in full flower. (I rather expect our decision to elect Keith Ellison to what had formerly been “her” seat in Congress would have made her last days quite a burden.)

If feeling bad about her death is unacceptable, can someone please let me know how many days must pass before we can speak the truth?

And Roy Cohn? Really now. Never would have been elected to office, and his sexuality was certainly in question, never open to the general public in the way that a woman’s gender is open.

Roy cohn’s sexuality was as obvious as Liberace’s! Obviously you’re unaware of the grand european tour he and his boytoy G. David Schine made. Burroughs parodied them in Naked Lunch. And Gore Vidal once quipped that around the beltway those in the know used to sing “Come Cohn or Come Schine.”

Could someone like Cohn get elected to a national office today?

Mark Foley, David Drier, Lindsay Graham — the list goes on and on.

Are there sufficient successful American role models for an openly gay leaders? Or could gay candidates potentially be compared to Roy Cohn in an effort to suppress their candidacy?

Here’s a role model for you.

That women should have been tried for crimes against humanity. She has bllod dripping from her hands. I do not believe in capital punishment but the death of these evil people is a moment for the people to rejoice. She obviously had not a stitch of humanity in her. For being a relative of such a monster might inspire sympathy, but not for her departure from THIS world.

her death came decades too late for thousands of people in latin America and around the world whose lives were snuffed out by those who executed her fascist musderous policies.

If there is a hell… she deserves to remain there for eternity.

again, thanks for your trenchant, spot on, post. almost always i learn something from your writing. i feel like i gain some better perspective or have an “aha” moment when i read your point of view. the punditocracy would do well to “humble” themselves and consider carefully what you have to say. i won’t hold my breath though ……