Yes, I believe Jeane Kirkpatrick's most important work was her essay on authoritarians vs. dictatorships which noted important differences between the Pinochets and the Stalins of the world.
And here's Mark Steyn on Pinochet, essentially re-making one of her main points:
"As for General Pinochet, if there's a lesson in all of this it's that dictators should kill more people rather than fewer. His was a benign enough regime to permit thousands of Left-wing opponents to flee the country and form a vocal international opposition that made him, in the UN General Assembly and elsewhere, the poster boy for Right-wing bastards and a cause celebre in the drawing rooms of the West. The tragedy is that, in Chile's transition to democracy, the General has done more for human rights and global democracy than the entire posturing body of international law."
...and of course, Milton Friedman, who just died recently, advised Pinochet's government on economic policy - another reason for Chileans to consider the general a positive experience for their country.
If only Pol Pot got the kind of derision that Pinochet got.