Molly Ivins passes

We were so sad to learn of Molly's passing. She turned a phrase like nobody, she told the truth like nobody. For me, she was an inspiration and a bright light.

WAND Executive Director Susan Shaer had this to say...

There just aren’t that many people like Molly.

Sure, there are lots of women writers, and many women humor writers, and a bunch of women journalists, but Molly was all of that and more.  She could skewer a trough of Texas politicians while making us chuckle and angry at the same time.

Molly Ivins brought political humor to new heights when she took on candidate George W. Bush and traveled the country trying to warn us that he would never be ready for prime time, and that just because Texas was sick of him, there was no need to burden the whole country.  She never gave up, even while battling the cancer that finally took her away.

She was a natural.  A beer loving, cigarette smoking, down-home girl.  I envision her gamboling with her fellow journalists in a bar outside the State Capitol in Texas and taking in all the gossip, then flinging it out to the world in her popular column.  The antics of the Texas leg (as she fondly called it) made them all seem silly and petty and also quite venal.  It was always funny, but you could take very seriously the criticism she penned.

Molly spoke to a WAND conference in 2003, and those who had never read her (how could that be?) were wowed and wooed.  Her mantra of more money for real live people, not long dead, not necessary nukes hit home with our crowd.  She truly cared about the human condition, the working poor, the single parents, the weary and the sick.  She just never accepted that politicians could play with those lives every day and made it her business to tell tales on their shenanigans whether it was the back room boys in Texas or the President of the United States.

Her final wish was to end the war in Iraq.  She said she would only write about the war till her battle ended.  It did end today.  Molly Ivins is gone.  Molly, we have to take up your crusade and end this war.

Comments

[sayre sheldon]

We have to take up Molly's challenge and not stop talking about getting rid of war and nuclear weapons until we follow her to the great beyond!

[Nan Grogan Orrock]

I always like to recall Mollie Ivins' advice to skewer the bad guys and have a good time doing it! What an inspiration she is to us all. Unflinchingly she told on the good ol boys and kept us in stitches with her twangy Texas drawl, her wry wit, and her go-get-em attitude toward the high and the mighty. She trekked across America via jet and car again and again speaking pro bono in defense of our constitutional rights for ACLU events. We ignore her words at our own peril. Thank you, Molly!