It would be nice to see someone with the stature (if not necessarily the politics) of Eleanor Roosevelt in a position of authority. But there are few today who appear both sane and reasonable, and who know exactly how to deal with the partisans on either side with equal grace.
Take, for example, Sarah Palin. I still love the woman for her steely spined defense of the unborn, for her having more testosterone than simpering, second-rate authors like Joe McGinnis and for her unwillingness to be shamed into talking like a Stepford anchorwoman (you betcha!).
But the fact that she bailed out on her state with almost two years left in her term, that she engaged in a star-spangled detour that was designed to promote herself and Paul Revere, and that she actually said that Jerry Sandusky should be "hung from the highest tree" before he's been convicted of anything is, to say the least, depressing. Still, given her ideological opponents, I'd take 100 Sarahs to one pinch-faced Nancy Pelosi.
Our former House speaker is the liberal's Joan of Arc, constantly hearing voices about going to war against the British, er, Republicans. She never in her life had one moment when compromising with the evil conservatives was an option, and she had the gall to actually opine that the Catholic church sanctioned abortion. Not only that, but she called the tea partiers frauds (the "astro-turf" movement, as I recall), but had no problem courting the 99 percent who, by the way, had no idea that a mere one-eighth of her adjusted gross income could have kept the entire population of Zuccotti Park in pizzas and beer for a year.
