{"id":538,"date":"2005-11-12T06:20:32","date_gmt":"2005-11-12T11:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/wp\/?p=538"},"modified":"2005-11-12T06:20:32","modified_gmt":"2005-11-12T11:20:32","slug":"madam-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=538","title":{"rendered":"Madam President"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In glorious counterpoint to the US&#8217;s dismal record of non-equal opportunities for women in the commercial and political spheres, Liberia&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ellenforpresident.org\/biography.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf<\/a> was elected the President of her country, thus becoming the first woman elected head of state in modern African history.<\/p><p><!--more--><br \/>\nTo make this even more miraculous, her opponent is a male soccer star, and her margin of victory was a stupendous 18% (59\/41%).<br \/>\nA Harvard graduate and former UN and World Bank official, Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf is nobody&#8217;s cosseted, well-dressed, well-coifed darling, like the Gina Davis character on &#8220;Commander in Chief&#8221;.<br \/>\nShe&#8217;s a plain, 66 year-old woman who was jailed for over a year under Samuel Doe, Liberia&#8217;s former dictator, and lived with death threats by former President and indicted war criminal, Charles Taylor.<br \/>\nEven more impressive than her personal courage is her record of tough-as-nails leadership in the man&#8217;s world of international banking, including the IMF and Citicorp.<br \/>\nAs one of her admirers said to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/11\/12\/international\/africa\/12liberia.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=6a815cc285d4e787&hp&ex=1131858000&partner=homepage\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a>, &#8220;She is fearless.  No men intimidate her.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In glorious counterpoint to the US&#8217;s dismal record of non-equal opportunities for women in the commercial and political spheres, Liberia&#8217;s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected the President of her country, thus becoming the first woman elected head of state in modern &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=538\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}