Madeleine Albright, thrilled that Hillary has made history, says she backs her because she’s ‘best’ — not because she’s a woman

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she was thrilled to see Hillary Clinton make history as the first woman presidential candidate for a major party, but noted that she supports Clinton because she believes she’s best for the job, not because she’s a woman.

There are plenty of women she wouldn’t have supported — Sarah Palin, for instance.

“What we need to do is vote for the person who is best for the job, and I think Hillary is. And there are certainly women I would never vote for: one of them you interviewed, Sarah Palin,” Albright said in an interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

Couric, then anchor for CBS Evening News, famously interviewed Palin in 2008, when the Alaska governor was on the Republican ticket as Sen. John McCain’s running mate. The series was widely seen as disastrous for Palin’s image.

Albright, who became the first female secretary of state under Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, made the statement while reflecting on a controversial comment she made during the Democratic primaries while urging voters to back Clinton: that there’s “a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

Couric pointed out that her statement opened up a generational divide between older women, who generally supported Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary, and younger women, who were more likely to support the more progressive Bernie Sanders.

Some women of the older generation felt that younger Sanders supporters did not appreciate the sacrifices people like Clinton had made to fight for the privileges that the younger generation enjoys today. Conversely, many younger women argued that they should not feel pressured or shamed into supporting a woman solely based on her gender, especially when another candidate on the ballot more closely reflects their values.

“I’d been saying it for 25 years, and it was so popular that it was on Starbucks cups and everything. And my mistake was to talk about it in a political setting,” Albright said. “And frankly, Katie, what had happened was, people didn’t hear what I really said, because at the end of it, people were applauding, and I actually said to Hillary, ‘Therefore, you are going to the other place.’”

Regardless, Albright said she learned that not all things are appropriate to say in all contexts. She said she hopes that it helped to open up a discussion about where the United States stands on women’s issues and added that nothing should be taken for granted.

“So the bottom line is: I shouldn’t have done it in a political setting,” she said, “but I’m glad it opened up a discussion.”
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