Sorry to hear that. I met her once--she was a friend of a friend and I often saw her at parties thrown by Dallas's three liberals. Her writing helped me stay sane all those years.

She quit The (note capital T for The in the Times obit) Times in 1982 after The Dallas Times Herald offered to make her a columnist. She took the job even though she loathed Dallas, once describing it as the kind of town “that would have rooted for Goliath to beat David.”

But the newspaper, she said, promised to let her write whatever she wanted. When she declared of a congressman, “If his I.Q. slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day,” many readers were appalled, and several advertisers boycotted the paper. In her defense, her editors rented billboards that read: “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” The slogan became the title of the first of her six books.

nice to see the right base trotting out the "liberal" version of the "god hates fags" argument. thanks to MI for standing up ( in the red-ass state of texas ) and calling out "the emperor and his new clothes." she and a precious few of the rest of us saw it from the start and spoke out on it. dubya at least mustered a few kind words of respect - she, the real deal - he, just hat.
- bill 2-01-2007 4:04 pm [add a comment]

• The Huffpo link is broken.
  
  It was interesting to read that in her obit that she had a "failed" career as a New York Times hack before she moved West and kicked ass. I did not know that.
  
  I wonder if the editors who were suffocating her talent ever felt a tinge of regret.
  - tom moody 2-01-2007 7:17 pm [add a comment]

It mattered, a lot, that Molly was writing for papers around the country during the Bush interregnum. She explained to disbelieving Minnesotans and Mainers that, yes, these men really were as mean, as self-serving and as delusional as they seemed. The book that Molly and her pal Lou Dubose wrote about their homeboy-in-chief, Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (Random House, 2000), was the essential exposé of the man the Supreme Court elected President. And Ivins's columns tore away any pretense of civility or citizenship erected by the likes of Karl Rove.

When Washington pundits started counseling bipartisanship after voters routed the Republicans in the 2006 elections, Molly wrote, "The sheer pleasure of getting lessons in etiquette from Karl Rove and the right-wing media passeth all understanding. Ever since 1994, the Republican Party has gone after Democrats with the frenzy of a foaming mad dog. There was the impeachment of Bill Clinton, not to mention the trashing of both Clinton and his wife--accused of everything from selling drugs to murder--all orchestrated by that paragon of manners, Tom DeLay.... So after 12 years of tolerating lying, cheating and corruption, the press is prepared to lecture Democrats on how to behave with bipartisan manners.

"Given Bush's record with the truth, this bipartisanship sounds like a bad idea on its face," Ivins continued, in a column that warned any Democrat who might think to make nice with President and his team that "These people are not only dishonest--they're not even smart."

Her readers cheered that November 9, 2006, column, as they did everything Molly wrote. And the cheers came loudest from those distant corners of Kansas and Mississippi where, often, her words were the only dissents that appeared in the local papers during the long period of diminished discourse following 9/11. For the liberal faithful in Boise and Biloxi and Beaumont, she was a lifeline--telling them that, yes, Henry Kissinger was "an old war criminal," that Bush had created a "an honest to goodness constitutional crisis" when it embarked on a program of warrantless wiretapping and that Bill Moyers should seek the presidency because "I want to vote for somebody who's good and brave and who should win." (The Moyers boomlet was our last co-conspiracy, and in Molly's honor, I'm thinking of writing in his name on my Democratic primary ballot next year.)

For the people in the places where no one famous ever came, Molly Ivins arrived a couple of times a week in the form of columns that told the local rabble-rousers that they were the true patriots, that they damn well better keep pitching fits about the war and the Patriot Act and economic inequality, and that they should never apologize for defending "those highest and best American ideas" contained in the Bill of Rights.

Often, Molly actually did come--in all of her wisecracking, pot-stirring populist glory.

Keeping a promise she'd made when her old friend and fellow Texan John Henry Faulk was on his deathbed, Molly accepted a steady schedule of invites to speak for local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in dozens of communities, from Toledo to Sarasota to Medford, Oregon. Though she could have commanded five figures, she took no speaker's fee. She just came and told the crowds to carry on for the Constitution. "I know that sludge-for-brains like Bill O'Reilly attack the ACLU for being 'un-American,' but when Bill O'Reilly's constitutional rights are violated, the ACLU will stand up for him just like they did for Oliver North, Communists, the KKK, atheists, movement conservatives and everyone else they've defended over the years," she told them. "The premise is easily understood: If the government can take away one person's rights, it can take away everyone's."

She also told them, even when she was battling cancer and Karl Rove, that they should relish the lucky break of their consciences and their conflicts. Speaking truth to power is the best job in any democracy, she explained. It took her to towns across this great yet battered land to say: "So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."

somewhere, her story about the KKK march through town, and the counter-marchers looking for some way to express their displeasure. They were looking for a non-violent, non-escalatingfunny something to do. And when the KKK marched down the street, the sidewalk observers, as they passed, turned around and MOONED them.
And when she told that story, the audience fell on the floor.

- - - - - - -

I still remember hearing her on some speech broadcast on NPR talking about getting attacked by Rush Limbaugh. She said it was "like being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you feeling all slimey."

- - - - - - - - - - -

I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

fixed.
- bill 2-01-2007 7:35 pm [add a comment]

Norbiz on Ivins
- mark 2-01-2007 10:18 pm [add a comment]

Another variation I remember on that line about women: "..when you live in a culture that expects you to be exquisite and also clean toilets..."

So much of feminist critique condensed in that one line, which smacks a man right in the middle of the forehead.
- tom moody 2-01-2007 11:30 pm [add a comment]

texas observer
- dave 2-02-2007 3:59 am [add a comment]

someone at the white house has a little bit of class.

Statement from President George W. Bush

Molly Ivins was a Texas original. She was loved by her readers and by her many friends, particularly in Central Texas. I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment to her beliefs will be missed. Laura and I send our condolences to Molly Ivins’ family and friends.

cheers to three texas broads



one last adios to ms molly


- bill 2-05-2007 10:54 pm [add a comment]

In an interview for a documentary on the ACLU, Molly commented on the ACLU's unrelenting persistence in defending religious liberty: "That principle," she said, "is so important that it's worth being a pain in the ass about. And that's what the ACLU is." Ironically, the New York Times wouldn't let us print that quote in Molly's death announcement because of the word "ass." I'm sure Molly would have laughed out loud.

this is quoted from the above nation link. i've also heard her tell this silghtly differently.

Molly moved from the Observer to the New York Times, where the voice she had developed in Austin--atypical of a Smith College graduate conversant in French--never quite fit. Her description of a community chicken slaughter in New Mexico as a "gang pluck" caught the attention of Times editor Abe Rosenthal, who told her he suspected she had tried to slip an off-color joke into her copy. "Abe, you're a smart man," Molly replied.

So good.

Abe was a ranting incoherent maniac, as we know from his Times columns.
- tom moody 2-12-2007 10:53 pm [add a comment]