DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's hard to accept that Molly Ivins is dead.
It's harder to accept that we won't be reading her columns anymore, and savoring that one-of-kind mix of Texas wit, undiluted liberalism and plain old common sense.
And it breaks my heart to know at a time when her passion and her humor is needed more than ever, she's not with us.
Former Boston Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy called Ivins, along with Nat Hentoff, the best columnists to have never won a Pulitzer.
I don't disagree. She was a finalist three times and deserved to win every time.
"If Mark Twain had a female counterpart on today's political and journalistic scene, it is Molly Ivins," wrote Harvey Wasserman earlier this week.
Harvey had that right. Molly could elegantly turn a phrase that could deflate any dim-witted political figure before he ever knew what hit him.
"There are two kinds of humor," she once told People magazine. One "makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity." The other "holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That's what I do."
While she could be a wicked satirist, she said that "I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar."
Molly chose her targets well. She's the one who wrote that Pat Buchanan's culture war speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention "probably sounded better in the original German."
She's the one who wrote of a congressman, "If his I.Q, slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day."
She's the one who called Texas "the laboratory for bad government," and enjoyed every moment of the circus in Austin that she called "The Lege."
She's the one who called politics the "finest form of free entertainment ever invented."
She was good enough to spend six unhappy years at The New York Times, and ribald enough to get fired for calling an annual chicken slaughter in New Mexico a "gang pluck."
Her heart was always in Austin and the ass-kicking magazine she once edited and wrote for, The Texas Observer. When she started making money as a columnist, she was quick to dig into her pocket to help keep the magazine going over the last three decades.
Molly was proud to be a liberal, and stood up for those beliefs better than just about any columnist of the last three decades. She may have loved to make us laugh, but she also wanted us to get into the ring and fight. She would go anywhere and do almost anything if she thought it helped to advance the causes of liberalism, feminism and fearless independent journalism.
Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 25 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 66
by
Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3454 comments)
on Thursday, February 1, 2007 at 3:18:53 PM
that someone who worked hard all of her life, and who probably paid into the social security pool a great many dollars as a result of her life's work, will not get to cash back a single cent of the dollars she put into said SS pool, and that the current, aberrant and abhorrent administration will more than likely use her SS pool money to finance a war that she opposed with every fiber of her being.
by
teresa simon-noble (56 articles, 17 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Thursday, February 1, 2007 at 5:09:32 PM
It's hard to think of her, as no more. What a joy to read her articles, and to see her from time to time on FreeSpeechTV, and/0r LINKTV. I will miss her forever. I knew she was 'my best friend' the first time I read her column. Rest in peace, Molly, and keep them honest up there.
by
Pat Herrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 154 comments)
on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 6:41:27 PM
America lost one of our great intellects and a courageous voice of clarity when Molly Ivins passed. Her humor and insight will be missed. The shining example of her life helped focus a light in two very dark places, George Bush's empty head and Dick Cheney's black heart.
God bless you Molly. We'll miss you.
mike kohr
Princeton, IL 61356
by
mike kohr (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 12 comments)
on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 8:39:25 PM
5 comments
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