On Missing Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins, toward the end of her muckraking life, didn't stop laughing. The privileged Texan, who grew up in the same elitist Houston culture as George W. Bush, died January 31, 2007, age 62, after a long bout with breast cancer. The U.S. lost a significant voice with her passing, one unafraid to excoriate "Shrub," her pet name for the Dubya she knew in high school and never really liked. Ivins was an anti-Republican terror, and I miss her.

The daughter of a rich oil man/attorney, she rebelled early and engaged her father in tumultuous debates on the two big issues that never seem to go away in America--civil rights and imperial wars. Later, she rebelled against the overly fastidious and conservative handling of her copy at the New York Times. She lamented losing her hefty salary at the Times, but journalistic freedom meant everything to her. She went home to Texas, syndicated her work, and moved on.

Every time a dumb ass in Congress (or a wannabe) says something that should offend the sensibilities of any American living in supposed modernity, something as profoundly ignorant as Kentuckian Rand Paul's recent statements regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for instance, I wonder what Ivins would have said. No doubt, it would be brutally funny and spot-on.

And what might she say about this nonsense straight out of Austin?

Oh, Molly, you went way too early!

As all but the most fanatical supporters of University of Texas football might say, "Texa$$" (spit).


TS