Throughout history civilizations have relied on their leaders to guide them in times of peril. Many of the most enduring stories are those of great heroes who single handedly vanquished abominable foes and saved their people from certain doom. According to Joe Scarborough we don't have to look too far back into history to find such great heroes and leaders. There’s no need to dust off a book on Greek mythology to find inspiring tales of triumph and glory. Put those silly ancient works of fiction back up on the shelf where they belong and take a short trip down memory lane to meet a great hero of our time.

If history is merely one damned fact after another, Joe Scarborough cherry picks his facts in his latest blog post to conjure up a mythical warrior of the 1980s, a cold warrior who saved western civilization and rescued a crumbling empire from certain demise. In Joe’s latest blog we meet an equal to the great mythical heroes of the ancient world. A powerful leader whose singular vision was destined to guide her people through turbulent times and on to wealth and prosperity. As all great heroes of history the mere utterance of their name instilled fear in their enemies, and this hero has a thunderous name. And also, like many other great tales of heroism, this great leader, despite all her powers and vanquished foes, befalls a tragedy.

Meet “The Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. You may be wondering what great feats would put Margaret Thatcher, a seemingly mortal human like the rest of us, in the category of mythical figures like Hercules and Theseus. Well Hercules, despite his supernatural strength, never saved an entire empire from certain collapse. According to Joe Scarborough, erudite student of history, the great Iron Lady was “a woman who by herself reversed the fortunes of this great nation”. By Joe’s historical account, the Iron Lady single handedly saved a once great empire from “rotting to its economic core” and “changed their fortunes forever”. You may still be unconvinced, perhaps thinking that Hercules and Theseus faced much more menacing foes like the Hydra and the Minotaur. Well again, as Joe astutely points out this hero's great feats, the Iron Lady “crushed labor unions, and buried forever the legacy of Clement Attlee”, which were both great evils that neither Hercules nor Theseus ever faced in their lifetimes.

A skeptic of the Iron Lady’s superhuman feats might point out that Britain’s economic woes in the 1970s were felt worldwide and mainly caused by the global oil crisis. A doubting Thomas may say that Clement Attlee’s legacy is hardly buried at all and that it lives on with Indian freedom and independence, British disengagement from costly occupations such as in Palestine, and the National Health System. Some may even go so far as to say that Clement Attlee’s legacy is not only alive and well but also thankfully so. Some may even dare to point to facts about the record unemployment caused by the Iron Lady’s policies in the early 1980s, the strife caused by protracted labor disputes, her implacable stance towards the conflict in Northern Ireland and how a wave of patriotism following the invasion of the Falkland Islands saved her political career at an opportune time when her popularity was at an all time low.

But the skeptic's cautious view of the Iron Lady's hero worshipers is where the tragedy of this great hero begins. As Joe laments: “Did she get the respect deserved from punks and politicians across the continent? No.” No indeed Joe Scarborough, no indeed. The tragedy here is that this great hero of our time will unfortunately be measured by the sum of her deeds, both good and bad, rather than the rosy picture painted by those who follow her ideology. The tragedy, that befalls so many leaders, is that not just their followers and supporters get to frame their legacy, but also those who believed in another path and those whose lives changed for the worse during their rule. But for those like Joe Scarborough who see the Iron Lady as nothing short of a modern day hero of mythical proportions, they can find comfort in knowing that their heroes will live on as gloriously as ever in their selective memories.