I love Steve Hayward's tribute to Lady Thatcher at Powerline.
When Leo Strauss received the news that Winston Churchill had died in January 1965, he made the following spontaneous remarks in his classroom at the University of Chicago on the lessons of Churchill’s life—lessons that apply just as well to Margaret Thatcher. His conclusion:
The death of Churchill reminds us . . . of our duty. We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness.
Update: Three items.
The Argentine pope pays tribute to Lady Thatcher:
"His Holiness Pope Francis was saddened to learn of the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher," the papal message stated. "He recalls with appreciation the Christian values which underpinned her commitment to public service and to the promotion of freedom among the family of nations. Entrusting her soul to the mercy of God, and assuring her family and the British people of a remembrance in his prayers, the Holy Father invokes upon all whose lives she touched God’s abundant blessings."
Fun footage of Baronness Thatcher's last debate in Parliament below, but first an anecdote.
One of the chefs where I work (a great, robust, bass-voiced Turk) has lasting affection for Baroness Thatcher because he was on duty in the kitchen of some hotel in Colorado where she and Dennis were attending some conference or summit or some such thing. In the morning she came into the kitchen and the chef offered to make her breakfast, but she refused, saying she always made her husband's breakfast for him herself.
Now this. Wait til the end where she says she's enjoying herself.
