Forgetting To Hide It

by digby

Joan Walsh does a nice rundown of the reactions of the candidates to the Bhutto assassination yesterday. I hadn’t heard this one, though:

Fred Thompson doesn’t have a problem with a female heading a government. But he’s not ready for it in this country, at least not yet. Speaking today to a small group of supporters in the last campaign rush before the Iowa caucuses next week, Thompson railed against those who opposed — and ultimately assassinated — former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. “They’re driven to distraction by the notion that a secular woman would be head of government,” the Republican presidential hopeful said of the woman who was slain as she campaigned for her country’s presidency after years in exile. But in America, Thompson said, repeating remarks earlier in the week, no woman is up to the job just yet. “This year, it’s a man, and next year, it’s going to be a man,” said the actor and former US senator from Tennessee. “I can see no one else who’s qualified to be president of the United States.”

Gosh, I sure hope that if a woman does accidentally get elected here, Thompson and his neanderthal followers aren’t “driven to distraction” by it and do something unfortunate.

It would seem that Pakistan is far more sophisticated and evolved than the US, at least by Thompson’s standard. After all, Bhutto first became Prime Minister in 1988 at the age of 35. Too bad we don’t have any women who are similarly qualified here in America. Maybe someday.

The Aqua Velva scented Thompson, by the way, is on Peggy Noonan’s list of “reasonable” candidates she can see as president — along with Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Biden, Dodd, Richardson and Obama. (Greenwald has more on the kook, fag and bitch Peggy says aren’t reasonable at all…)

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