Condoleezza Rice has been pretty useless as a Secretary of State, no doubt about it. So it was only a matter of time before Lawrence Auster said that she was useless because she's a woman. Plenty of useless Secretaries of State have been men, but that doesn't matter. Jack Straw was a useless - and disgustingly anti-Israel - Foreign Secretary. Last I looked, he was a man. Doesn't matter.

Useless things Rice has been saying include:

"I know what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian," she said. "I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness."

"There is pain on both sides. This has gone on too long."

A reader then points out that the first person to say "I feel your pain" was Bill Clinton. Yep, he's a man. Ah, says Auster, but that's because he's a man acting like a woman. You see, since women got all uppity and got the vote and went into politics, men have got all feminised.

And leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir? They were not women as such, at least not politically - they were acting like men, that's why they were so good. Stands to reason. And you can't generalise from two women. Well you can if they're useless, but not if they're good.

Ironically, radical feminists used to say that Margaret Thatcher wasn't really a woman. Auster is in good company.

So let's sum up: a woman can't be as good as a man in politics because if she is she's like a man, so it doesn't count.  And a man can't be as bad as a woman in politics, because if he is he's like a woman so it doesn't count.

With his circular argument, Larry has made me all dizzy. But then I'm only a girly, so what do you expect?

Cue Henry Higgins: