Image via @Number10cat
Honestly, I think this is borderline disqualifying for the presidency. Asked last night about which woman should be featured on a redesigned $10 bill, the answers ranged from the legitimate (Rosa Parks) to the silly (Ivanka Trump). But one stood out for its outrageousness: Jeb Bush’s, who suggested former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Has there ever been a more offensive suggestion? American currency is for Americans, folks. And if you’re not going to propose an American (John Kasich also went rogue by proposing Mother Teresa), you assuredly had better not go with the former prime minister of a country from whose yoke of oppression our Founding Fathers waged a revolution to free themselves! And let us not forget that British invaders actually set fire to the White House. Yet Jeb Bush wants a ruler of that barbaric nation on our $10 bill. Heck, why not replace George Washington with King George III on the $1 bill while we’re at it? The mind boggles.
My tongue is somewhat in my cheek for this, but in all seriousness, I think it’s astonishing that a candidate for the presidency of the United States couldn’t come up with an American woman to grace the $10 bill.
and keeping Andrew Jackson is asinine.
He also managed to repeat one of my all time favorites: “My brother kept us safe.” Bull shit. Last time I checked, his brother was president on 9/11, and his idiotic decision to invade Iraq has weakened our country and our allies by destabilizing a dangerous part of the world. Denial.
about Afghanistan. It’s with my students. We’re preparing to read Kite Runner. Three people–Eikenberry and Dick Armitage are two–say Iraq was a mistake. I don’t pay a lot of attention to foreign policy, but the number of stupid decisions based on wishful thinking is astounding. The costs in life and money are appalling.
Why not just put Queen Elizabeth on all our currency, or just convert to the British Pound.
Although, in retrospect, this sounds more like a discussion of the Canadian dollar.
to replace FDR’s picture on the dime with Reagan.
Jeb may be the worst “frontrunner” ever.
It seemed as if he was going to say Nancy Reagan, which may have been an even dumber answer although an expected gross pander, but when he dropped Thatcher I laughed so hard.
I can’t really see any of these clowns being President, but he really seems like one of the least likely among the group on that stage. Trump shamed him pretty badly last night.
I’m surprised more didn’t go with Susan B. Anthony given that she’s a pretty safe choice and now used, somewhat dubiously, as a pro-life figurehead.
(Also, it should totally be Harriet Tubman on the $20.)
On the dollar coin.
.
…and Jackson should go and Hamilton should move to the 20.
than to speak out and remove all doubt.” MARK TWAIN
The ignorance on display in the Republican party last night is both stunning and scary. Would you really want any one of those Know-Nothings with their finger on the nuclear button ?
After our primary we must unite behind our nominee, whoever it is, and stop these cons from getting power.
Can we all agree on that ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Don’t forget Dame Maggie would have rather let hunger strikers starve than “negotiate with ‘terrorists'”. I remember seeing a lot of W posters when I worked South Boston during the 2004 Convention, not sure if the same neighborhood with a mural like this will be aching for Jeb! now.
My bet is that most of the ~50 million Americans who call themselves Irish don’t even know what the hunger strike was, no less be able to name Bobby Sands, the decade, or associate it with Margaret Thatcher.
I just have a hard time imagining many of the self-identified Irish Americans would even be willing to care about that connection even if it were spelled out for them.
Boston still has enough actual Irish around here that there are some who remember. It’s no accident Sinn Fein is always feted at our breakfast every March, as they should be. But the days when Southie looked like a Belfast neighborhood with all the murals are over, the faded one I linked to above is one of the last. Sadly these days the AOH and KofC care more about curtailing civil rights for women in America than fighting for them in Erin.
This is a good thing, and the faster that time recedes into the fuzzy distance, the better. I was visiting distant cousins at the time of the Omagh bombing. At that time, it became uncomfortably clear to me that much of the ardor for “the struggle” came from new and second-generation Americans, whose attitudes remained frozen as they were during the time of the revolution or the civil war, when mom or grandpa emigrated. Those that remained in Ireland just wanted the violence to stop.
Can tell you haven’t talked politics in an Irish pub recently. But that’s ok. As an anti-nationalist it’s enjoyable to wish you were correct. But Thatcher? That’s a special case…
don’t even know how to correctly spell Guinness. The folks who talk Irish politics in an Irish pub is a minuscule percentage of the 50 million Irish Americans.
I was being partly tongue in cheek like the thread starter, but I think the awful Streep movie helped her reputation as a “strong female leader” on this side of the Pond, when she was really a terrible one who devastated Britain’s working class and needlessly prolonged a violent conflict for another decade and a half.
With the “you forgot Poland” line? I’m with stromv on this one; ethnic identity just isn’t as important to voters as it used to be.
I rolled my eyes at some of the answers, but it’s not worth outrage. Pretty sure the only British Invasion anyone cares about these days is the musical one in the 1960s.
the hell that would have been raised would be epic, Christopher.
There are still millions of people in the GOP who refuse to believe he was born in America — if he has suggested a former foreign leader to appear on our own currency, it would have been a major scandal and Fox News would be talking about it for months or years.
But Dems are not quite as talented at pulling off bullshit outrage in this context.
that I actually do find the notion of a candidate for president suggesting a non-American on our currency to be a bit offensive. Certainly moreso than the manufactured garbage that cable news likes to peddle.
I mean, Margaret Thatcher is an offensive suggestion, but surely there are other women who wouldn’t be offensive? Maybe not your favorite choice, but would a suggestion of Marie Curie or Anne Frank be offensive? And, so far as I can tell, Sacagawea wasn’t an American — she was Lemhi Shoshone.
I think there are enough choices from our soil that America need not search outside our borders to find great people in history, but offensive?
It’s offensive because the suggestion implies that there are no American women who deserve to be on the money. Were I a woman, I would be even more offended.
when Sacagawea was chosen?
She wasn’t a foreigner.
She sure as hell was a foreigner to Lewis and Clark’s America.
* Not white (or black)? Check
* Didn’t speak English? Check
* Not a US citizen? Check
* Born, lived, and died in land that wasn’t part of the United States in 1803? Check
* Not married to an American (she was married to a French Canadian)? Check
The closest the coin comes to an American is the depiction of her son, American Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.
So how again is it that she “wasn’t a foreigner?”
Sad that he couldn’t name an American woman that he wasn’t afraid would offend a voter bloc he was interested in, and sad that he thought naming a foreign leader would be an acceptable choice for a prominent US bill.
(tongue in cheek)
There was no birthright citizenship.
The amendment excludes “Indians not taxed” but subsequent legislation has recognized the automatic citizenship of our Native population. It wasn’t well-defined, but there must have been some sense of what constituted birthright citizenship, since such was a requirement for presidential eligibility in the original Constitution.
…but it doesn’t mean we have to turn our outrage meter to 11 just for balance.
It happens. Move on.
http://images.christianpost.com/full/58163/phyllis-schlafly.jpg?w=262
What do we expect from a party that thinks that nomination of Sarah Palin shows that they aren’t sexist?
Considering the location of the debate.
just watching a recording, perhaps I misheard, but it sounded like she was mentioned, thanked for the venue.
I know it’s funny, but the fact that Americans remain so clueless about the few female heroes we have is not funny.
I know I’m a nerd, but two names jump immediately to my mind:
1. The late Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey saved a generation of American families from the Thalidomide tragedy when blocked the use of the drug (then being touted as a treatment for morning sickness) in the US. She subsequently went on to help shape the licensing process of the FDA to be scientifically rigorous. From the above piece:
Ms. Kelsey died on August 7, 2015. Perhaps if any of the candidates or their staff had been paying attention to women (other than finding ways to further restrict women’s health care coverage), it might have been on somebody’s radar last night.
2. Admiral Grace Hopper played a hugely influential — and largely uncelebrated — role in making computer science what it is today. She coined the term “debug”, while humorously describing the removal of a real moth from an early computer in the 1940s. She was a major player in creating COBOL, still one of the most influential software languages of all time.
Rachel Carson. The contrast between today’s bird and wildlife population and that of my DDT-infused childhood is striking, and the change would not have happened without her.
to see the reaction at to GOP presidential debate, if one of the candidates made that particular suggestion.
As CMD observes, Ms. Carson is not universally respected.
I think it would be hard to find something objectionable about either Ms. Kelsey or Ms. Hopper.
Eleanor Roosevelt or Frances Perkins are my top choices.
Which is largely a good thing, though people forget how polarizing she was for quite some time. There was delicious irony that Ted Cruz choose her, the man who attacked Planned Parenthood for the bulk of the debate, since she was a proud board member. Jeb!’s grandpa was also a founding board member.
considering that the patron saint, Ronald Regan, was knighted by the Queen in 1989 — how offensive should that be?
Just a meta note about how times have changed.
During much of my life, anyone who created or shared (including publishing) the image on the thread-starter could be charged with a felony. It was illegal to even make a copy on an early thermal-paper copy machine (black and white, special paper).
Sort of like the way that using a flag as apparel — even as a lapel pin, I think — was both illegal and highly inflammatory during the anti-war era. Today, when Republicans wear flag-themed clothing, they are “honoring” the flag. In the 1960s, when anti-government demonstrators did the same, they were “desecrating” the flag.
Funny how things change over time.
I googled a list of 50 most famous American women and pretty sure none are as significant in our history as Hamilton.
Bush is a goofball. Not defending him on this that’s for sure.
I like Clara Barton. I am partial to Jane Addams, though she is mostly forgotten now. I’m an admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt, though she’s polarizing in some crowds and only was able to do what she did because of marriage.
I’ve visited Hull House and have driven on her tollway. Great candidate in my view.
Jackson is a better candidate for bumping, though we could also bump the Presidents who already are on coins off as well to free up even more space for additional women and people of color. MLK should be on currency, I doubt Lincoln would object to giving up his place on the $5, or they could both be on the front and you can keep the Memorial on the reverse.
Apparently it has to do with which denomination is due for an anti-counterfeiting makeover – the $20 has already had it, I guess. Still, it sucks.
It seems when you’re the first Secretary of the Treasury that should ensure your place on one of our banknotes.
And Ted Cruz is on our team (stopped clock right 2 x day).
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rick-perry-broken-clock-trump
“A broken clock is right once a day,” Perry said.
n/t
Jeb! suggesting that Margaret Thatcher should be on the American $10 bill once and for all puts an end to the idea that Jeb! is the smarter Bush brother. Elitist much?