PRAISE HILLARY? – AT 9:49 A.M. ET:  We don't agree with Hillary Clinton too often here, and I wouldn't trust her with the family jewels, but she gave a gutsy speech to an Islamic gathering, and we're happy to applaud what she said:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decried the marginalization of women in the Islamic world Tuesday night, calling women’s empowerment key to true democracy in the Middle East.

Mrs. Clinton made the remarks in a wide-ranging speech at the 2011 U.S.-Islamic World Forum. She noted “troubling signs regarding the rights and opportunities of women” in Egypt and Tunisia following their recent revolutions.

“So far, women have been excluded from key transitional decision-making processes,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“When women marched through Tahrir Square to celebrate International Women's Day in their new democracy, they were met by harassment and abuse.”

We're glad that Ms. Clinton is getting that information.  Our government is often short on human intelligence.

“You can’t claim to have a democracy if half the population is silenced,” she added.

Mrs. Clinton cited the United Nations’ first Arab Human Development Report in 2002, which found the political and economic participation of women in the region to be the lowest in the world.

“Successive reports have shown little progress,” she said, quoting the 2005 edition’s contention that women’s empowerment is “a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance, inseparably and causally linked to the fate of the Arab world.”

COMMENT:  Okay, at least someone in the administration is showing some spine.  She might lend some to her boss, who's in desperate need of a spinal transplant. 

A former Israeli prime minister said that Golda Meir was the best man in his cabinet.  Maybe Barack will be saying the same about Hillary.

April 13, 2011