Sunday Roundup

When I heard that Margaret Thatcher had died, I immediately flashed back to the afternoon of February 11, 1975 when, on my car radio in London, I first heard the news that Thatcher had been elected leader of the Tory Party. What had been almost universally assumed to be impossible -- the election of a woman from a modest background to the highest position of power within the conservative establishment -- now suddenly seemed to have had been inevitable. And love her or loathe her (the Trafalgar Square "party" to celebrate her death reminds us how many did the latter), Margaret Thatcher was the kind of conviction-driven leader who can bridge the chasm between the impossible and the inevitable. In a week when even an anemic gun control bill had to fight off a filibuster -- and still faces a long, uphill road -- those working for its passage should ask themselves: what would Maggie do?