Molly Ivins Gone

Molly Ivins died today, at age 62, of breast cancer.

As you may have noted, Molly Ivins was one of my favorite people. She was a consistent voice of good-natured, persistent liberalism. She loved what she loved and hated what she hated, and was able (and willing) to laugh at both.

Growing up in Texas, as it feared from thoughtless libertarianism to soulless fascism, I found her columns, whether in the Dallas Times Herald, the Fort Worth Star Telegram (affectionately known as the Startle Gram), the Observer, or any other source, offered a voice of reason, of solace, of hope. She was never ashamed of being labeled a 'liberal'; in fact, she reveled in it.

She was a populist in the southern, open-ended sense. Willing to listen to and accept or reject any like-minded themes, always moving on in the interest of the 'people' and not the powers-that-be. Many an icon withered beneath her gaze, her scorn, her written sneer.

She was a great lady, a great hearted person, and a true giant. There will never be another like her. The left, and all of America, is diminished with her passing.

The Houston Chronicle (the Cronk) has a collection of her wit and wisdom.

Her books, Shrub and Bushwhacked, both with Lou DuBose, as stunning exposes of Dumbfuck, and if Shrub had been read by a few more people before Nov 2000, we might not be on the verge of Armageddon.