Posted by lauraflanders at 3:04 pm
June 15, 2010

Iron Lady, Meet Pitbull in Lipstick

It’s a political cartoonist’s dream: Sarah Palin is reportedly planning a trip to England to meet her political idol, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady, Britain’s first female prime minister, the infamous union-buster of the 80s meets the Pitbull in Lipstick.

Thatcher is now 84 and out of public life, yet her reputation still looms larger than life over not just British but world politics, and meeting her may help Palin burnish some Serious Politician credentials as she stretches for that Reaganite mantle that’s still political gold among Republican voters. Thatcher, after all, had what they call a very special relationship with Reagan, bonded by their mutual love of privatization.

Palin’s attempts at credibility-by-osmosis may be enough for a section of the base, but they won’t help her win over anyone in the middle. Thatcher didn’t trade on her femininity or any folksy accent, personal drama, or $150,000 wardrobe. She didn’t need an army of consultants. Instead, she sold her politics. Palin, on the other hand, is the woman who famously couldn’t name a newspaper she reads.

It’s a grim day when feminists are comparing Thatcher favorably to another female politician. Yet when I picture Thatcher and Palin’s meeting, I can’t help but imagine Thatcher rolling her eyes and saying “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

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Laura is a long-time journalist, author and media activist. She wrote the New York Times bestseller Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America. Before founding GRITtv, she started up and hosted “Your Call” on public radio KALW in San Francisco and RadioNation on Air America Radio. She is also a regular contributor to The Nation magazine and the Huffington Post. Flanders was founding director of the Women’s Desk at the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and for more than 10 years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR’s nationally-syndicated radio program. Laura is a regular commentator on MSNBC’s The Ed Show where she has become the go-to source for reliable, progressive analysis of the day’s top stories. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named her one of ten “Media Heroes” of 1994 and she was recently awarded a NY Moves “Power Woman of the Year.”