Margeret Thatcher is being remembered more fondly in the U.S. than in Britain, it seems, although not everyone on this side of the pond is being all that reverent, either. See, for example, Alex Pareene, “The Woman Who Wrecked Great Britain.”

The view from the American Right (example) is that she did what had to be done, for Britain’s own good, and while it’s a shame so many people suffered, by now everyone ought to agree it was for the best. Andy Sullivan saw in Thatcher “a final rebuke to the collectivist, egalitarian oppression of the individual produced by socialism and the stultifying privileges and caste identities of the class system.”

On the other hand, Paul Krugman points out —

Thatcher came to power in 1979, and imposed a radical change in policy almost immediately. But the big improvement in British performance doesn’t really show in the data until the mid-1990s. Does she get credit for a reward so long delayed?

And the answer is, from the Right, of course. Just like so many wingnuts wanted to credit Ronald Reagan for Bill Clinton’s economy, whereas (in their minds) President Obama owned George W. Bush’s economy as soon as he won the 2008 election.