Barbra Streisand, Unprompted: Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell Are In Heaven

Among other things, Madeleine Albright is known for saying in 1996 that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was “worth it” and for later being quoted by Taylor Swift in 2013 when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler made fun of her at an awards show.

She is also one of those people who American women of a certain type absolutely adore. This is because she was a woman in a man’s world (politics) and she didn’t let a pesky thing like gender get in the way of her becoming Secretary of State and championing the death of Iraqi children.

Well, Madeleine Albright is dead now — good for her. At 84 years old, she died of natural causes. Hillary Clinton is understandably sad, and so is another dear friend of Albright, Barbra Streisand.

Streisand wrote a letter to the editor for the New York Times about her friend Maddie. In it, she uses a word nobody has ever used to describe Albright, saying her friend was both “brilliant” and “adorable” — if you say so, Babs.

She then describes how they bonded in 1993, writing, “We first met in 1993 when she was ambassador to the United Nations and quickly bonded, talking politics, going to the theater, seeing movies and shopping for antiques.” I wonder if they ever talked about the Iraqi kids? In any case, Streisand ends the letter declaring the world needs more people like her friend:

The world needs more people like Madeleine, whose instinct was to connect with others and build on what we share, rather than destroy lives and cities, like what’s happening in Ukraine today. Madeleine became very close to Colin Powell, her successor as secretary of state, who died last October.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll solve the world’s problems together, up in heaven.

Per Taylor Swift, Albright famously said that “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Well, according to Barbra Streisand, there is also a special place in heaven for women who are not too precious about civilian deaths.

While God knows best, in my humble opinion these two deserve only hell, where maybe they will make eye contact without ever acknowledging one another.