This seems like a good thing:

A WOMAN who was tortured by Augusto Pinochet's secret police in the 1970s is expected to become the next president of Chile.

With the elections due a week on Sunday, Michelle Bachelet is leading her two closest rivals by about 20 percentage points....

A socialist, a single parent and agnostic, Senora Bachelet defies stereotypes in a country still steeped in macho traditions, where there are relatively few high-ranking businesswomen and female politicians, and where divorce was legalised only last year.

Yet the 54-year-old paediatrician has proved adept at winning over her critics. Not only did she succeed, as Defence Secretary, in gaining the trust of her commanders-in-chief, but she also won over millions of ordinary people in this Catholic, conservative nation....

Her father also died while being tortured during the Pinochet years. Her Socialist Party is the party of Salvador Allende, who, of course, was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup.

This New York Times article from 2004 portrays her as someone who's not acting as an "avenging angel." Still, it's a good sign. And she's an agnostic -- if the U.S.lasts another thousand years, I don't think it will ever have a president who's less than devout.

(Via DU.)