Paging Julie Foudy

After Atalanta alerts us to this charming instance of what I've come to refer to as the Abby Wambach glacier phenomenon: simultaneously advancing one foot  while retreating three.  Although the cracks in the facade of the '90s dream team are now having light cast on them, one thing for which you could count on Foudy was a realistic assessment of the countries she visited, with a keen understanding that being an athlete didn't give you a magic float-above-the-ground bubble.  For the last freaking time (well, not really, because the Olympics are not going to let this topic go away), a country's human-rights record matters, even if you're some kind of 'neutral' party.  Jessica Mendoza gets it, too.  Almost makes me think there's something to this whole education thing.

I'm not overly bothered by the gender essentialism in the second set of quotes, because it's mild and I think she's b.s.'ing, which she also does a lot of and it's disturbing in its own way, but differently from the apparently genuine belief that you don't say bad things about China's horrendous policies.  A.A. points out, rightly, that Abby does have strong humanitarian impulses, so picking up this particular PR dimension is another indication of the deep bifurcation in her nature, which I don't think can all be attributed to U.S. Soccer.