Hilary Clinton’s last-ditch effort to “humanize” herself before the first primaries reminds me of one of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s rare attempts to tell a joke.

According to historian Paul Johnson, who was present, Mrs. Thatcher was once obliged to sit through what he described as “a long, wearisome dinner with ten speeches.” She was so obliged because she discovered –- to her chagrin -– that she was scheduled to speak last.

As the other speakers droned on, Thatcher’s patience wore to tatters. When her turn at the podium finally came, she was furious. She began: “As the last of ten speakers, and the only woman, I have this to say. The cock may crow, but it’s the hen who lays the eggs.”

As Johnson remembers the event, he was the only one to laugh. Everyone else was aghast. Mrs. Thatcher told him later that her father had told her that joke. Apparently, the joke supplied by Mrs. Thatcher’s father did as much to humanize the Iron Lady as the campaign commercial by Hillary’s mother did to humanize Lady Macbeth of Little Rock.

Some people, apparently, simply cannot be made to seem warm and fuzzy.