"If Golda Meir... heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors."

Peggy Noonan channels Golda Meir... and calls Hillary Clinton a prissy sissy for complaining about sexism.

It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

Butch up!

But really, the cries of sexism are a way to try to hit low and hear the crack. It just hasn't been too effective.

"Look, I'm renowned not only in the U.S. but across the world for my capacity to be vengeful, aggressive, brutal, and ruthless..."

"... and I'm already about ten times as intimidating to any foreign despot as John Edwards could be even if he shaved his head and got some tattoos."

What Hillary could've said when that guy asked her how she's going to get taken seriously by the "Arab states, Muslim nations" where they see women as "second-class citizens." According to Beldar, anyway -- who thinks ¶ 19 of my debate blogging is too accepting of what was an "incredibly" and "amazingly" "lame" response:

Starting with a reference to visits she made as First Lady is, I am convinced, a careless use of that double-edged sword. None of those visits she made as First Lady were anything more than ceremonial....

If one is going to cite examples of notable national leaders who were effective notwithstanding their lack of a Y-chromosome, then then screamingly obvious example is former British Prime Minister Margaret ("The Iron Lady") Thatcher, followed (equally obviously) by Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi. Babbling about little-known women heads of state from Germany, Chile, or Liberia — Liberia?!? — cuts against her case, since none of those countries, whether headed by a male or a female, is going to be perceived by American voters as having a role remotely comparable to that of the United States in world affairs.

Looking at the transcript, I see what he's talking about. And I can see that my comment is very much a representation of how what she said merged with my own thinking on the subject. The key problem that I ignored wasn't the First Lady business, but her failure to address in any way the problem of the way Muslim countries treat women. She acted as though the question was just: Can a woman be President?

This was a question that begged for a thoughtful, articulate statement of principles. There are so many things she could have said about how we must not abandon our values just to gratify those cultures and countries who don't yet embrace sexual equality. This question was a medium-speed fastball right over the center of the plate — and she laid down a not-so-good bunt with it.

Maybe Elizabeth Edwards is right about Hillary: She really doesn't have the best feminist instincts.

Strong women are dying this week.

First, Ann Richards. Now, Orianna Fallaci. Here's Michelle Malkin's tribute to Fallaci, focusing on her polemical last books. But let's remember her whole life. From the WaPo obit:

Fallaci set the pace for a daring life when she joined Italy's anti-fascist resistance as a teenager during World War Two, then showed the same fearlessness as a war correspondent.

She covered conflicts in Vietnam, the Middle East, and Latin America at a time when few women braved the front lines, and was shot and beaten in 1968 during student demonstrations in Mexico.

Later, she succeeded in fiction with novels including "A Man," inspired by her love affair with Greek resistance fighter Alexandros Panagoulis.

Her exchanges with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, the Shah of Iran, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and other leaders, collected in her book "Interview with History," stood out for her provocative, uncompromising questioning.

In her interview with Kissinger, Fallaci needled the U.S. statesman until he agreed that the Vietnam War was "useless."

Kissinger later wrote that her interview with him was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press."