At the Women's Media Center Web site, At the Women's Media Center Web site, Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom examine the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton against the backdrop of the passionately lived career of Bella Abzug, the late congresswoman and world-renowned women's rights leader. (Levine and Thom recently published a delightful oral history of Abzug's life as a public figure.) They posit that somewhere within the psyche of the highly scripted and carefully calculating presidential candidate may still lurk the firebrand who delivered a famously controversial speech to her graduating class at Wellesley, who championed children's rights, who took a huge risk with her plan for a national healthcare system. In the end, they leave open their question of whether or not Hillary possesses an "Inner Bella," with an implied hope that she does. Among the interesting tidbits in their commentary is the role that Abzug played in advising the then-first lady in her preparation to address the U.N.'s 4th World Conference on Women, which took place in 1995 in Beijing. Thinking about Abzug in the midst of this presidential race offers more than a little food for thought. Though identified in the public mind these days largely with the women's movement, Abzug was a player in nearly all of the constituencies of the liberal coalition -- the civil rights and labor communities, especially. There's one woman nobody dared to suggest wasn't tough enough. --Adele M. Stan
