Pelosi: 'Most powerful woman'?

WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked whether she is the most powerful woman in U.S. history, said that's "a compliment for all women."

Pelosi, a California Democrat who played a key role in shepherding healthcare reform legislation to congressional passage, told ABC News in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night she told President Barack Obama after the bill passed she "was certain that it would not have happened without his vision."

When ABC's Diane Sawyer asked Pelosi to respond to the proposition -- taken from an item in The Economist -- that she is the "most powerful woman in American history," Pelosi declined to reject the notion.

"That sounds good. I don't, I don't take it personally, except I take it as a compliment for all women," she said.

Pelosi said the 111th Congress is "on a par" with those that enacted Social Security, Medicare and civil rights legislation, and she defended passage of the healthcare bill over unanimous Republican opposition.

"You strive for bipartisanship when you can," she said.

However, she said "you cannot let the lack of bipartisanship stand in the way of making this change that is important to the American people."