Well we didn't look at it like that. We looked at it: "Why Carolyn Maloney?" Of course, we didn't know about Caroline Kennedy, but we do know and have - this is not against somebody, this is for somebody who we know has had a proven record. It's 16 years in the House, 10 years on the City Council of New York City, that she has shown her determination to pass legislation. She is - she knows how a legislature works.

We've spent too much on how to destroy and blow up things with the military and too little on our health care, and too little on education, and it goes on.

Nowhere have women been more excluded from decision-making than in the military and foreign affairs. When it comes to the military and questions of nuclear disarmament, the gender gap becomes the gender gulf.

I think that we're just fortunate that you have an experienced legislator: 26 years of fighting for our issues in line. I mean, there's nobody, there's no man, nor woman that is being mentioned that has the legislative experience that she has and the passion in her heart for advancing the cause of women.

I'm not a prejudice person, and I've worked with many male legislators and some have been excellent for us, so I'm not speaking against a class of people.

Since the 1950s (until the early 1990s), girls in Kabul and other cities attended schools. Half of university students were women, and women made up 40 percent of Afghanistan’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers and 30 percent of its civil servants. A small number of women even held important political posts as members of Parliament and judges. Most women did not wear the burqa.

She [Carolyn Maloney] knows the financial issues, that's why we thought she was perfect because we're in a - we're in, as you know, a financial crisis, an economic crisis, and I know that she'll see the whole picture.