Chile's New Leader A Woman

She is a Socialist, a pediatrician, and a victim of Pinochet torture in the 1970's

Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old physician who had been health and defense minister under outgoing President Ricardo Lagos, won 53.51% of votes, based on results from more than 97% of votes. Businessman Sebastian Pinera conceded defeat...

"Who would have imagined 10, 20, even five years ago that Chile would elect a woman president?" she asked.

Her victory appeared to signal a political shift in Chile, one of the western hemisphere's most conservative countries, where traditional religious values have guided public policy.

Bachelet is an agnostic. She has been long separated from her husband and has raised three children largely on her own -- "all possible sins together," she has said.

She was imprisoned and tortured during the early years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and lived in European exile in the late-1970s. She speaks five languages.

Does this mean there is hope for us?  Five languages? Our president has trouble with one.