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My only thought about Margaret Thatcher is the same one I had about Ronald Reagan. I hated a lot of what they did, but once in a while a country just needs a change.

Gail Collins

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Gail Collins
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: November 25
Journalist
Cincinnati
Ohio
Thought
Change
Country
Needs
Thatcher
Margaret
Ronald
Reagan
Hated

More quotes by Gail Collins

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When the women's movement started in the 1960s, there was a vision of a future where women didn't wear makeup or worry about how their hair looked, and everybody wore sensible, comfortable clothes. It ran into an absolute brick wall.
Gail Collins
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If you live in a place that you perceive to be a crowded place, you appreciate government you see it as this thing that protects you against crime, that keeps order, that makes sure that nobody puts a massage parlor next to your house, that keeps other people's dogs from pooping on the sidewalk.
Gail Collins
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We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.
Gail Collins
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For a border state, I would argue that Texas is less lunatic on the subject of immigration issues than other places around it, like Arizona. They're much more comfortable with their long-term identity as a place with a very large Hispanic population.
Gail Collins
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You know, I have a lot of books on my iPad, but when I try to read them, I find myself wandering off to play games. Those are books I'm interested in. I can't imagine what would have happened to me in college if my biology class had been on the same computer as Words With Friends and Doom.
Gail Collins
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Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
Gail Collins
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There have been tons of politicians who were slow to accept equal rights when it meant changes in the established social order. Many eventually came around, admitted they were wrong, and were forgiven. But the ones who actively choose hate-mongering don't ever get a pass.
Gail Collins
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Bin Laden wasn't all that central to the terrorist network any more, but taking him down created a kind of national catharsis. It's been a really, really long time since we had something to celebrate that didn't involve a sports team. I'd rather it had been a non-death-related occasion, but we'll take what we can get.
Gail Collins
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The IRS targeting certain groups for harassment because of their politics would be unfair. If we found out the NSA was keeping special tabs on everyone who worshiped at a mosque or took a Bible trip through the Middle East, you'd have an uprising.
Gail Collins
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Women in America will have to find an answer for the pressures of work and family, but if you really care about women's issues you have to think about women in the world, especially Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Gail Collins
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One line I'd draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn't. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they'll get penalized with lower benefits.
Gail Collins
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Lobbyists really are experts in their fields and know what they are talking about. That's why the government always listens to them as they tell the government what it's doing wrong and what it should be doing instead.
Gail Collins
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First they gerrymander us into one-party fiefs. Then they tell us they only care about the swing districts. Then they complain about voter apathy.
Gail Collins
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At the beginning of his administration, Obama homed right in on Medicare, which he wanted to fix by reducing the overall cost of health care in this country. He risked everything - some would claim he lost everything - by being so single-minded.
Gail Collins
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During the Obama years, the Republicans have done an unprecedented amount of stonewalling on cabinet-and-below appointees. I would also argue that their war on judicial nominees has been way beyond what went before. Really, if the president nominated God to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals, Mitch McConnell would threaten a filibuster.
Gail Collins
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This is the moment when I should also admit that when the Internet first arrived I kept telling people it was a fad.
Gail Collins
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What naturally you want to do if you were a prominent person in the public light and you are disgraced, you want to make a comeback, and normally that begins with somebody saying, “I want to do something to help people. I want to do something to help the lepers in the Third World. I want to do something to help abandoned wives in India.”
Gail Collins
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The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.
Gail Collins
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It's possible that you have been told a time or 10 that you don't appreciate how tough your elders had it. It's true that, if you had been coming of age back in, say, 1960, you would probably be feeling more restricted, if only because you were doomed to spend your days in a skirt, nylon stockings and girdle.
Gail Collins
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You hear younger women say, 'I don't believe I'm a feminist. I believe women should have equal right and I believe in fighting for the rights of other women, but I'm certainly not a feminist. No, no, not that!' It's just a word. If you called it 'Fred' would it be better?
Gail Collins