Molly Ivins

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Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (30 August 1944 – 31 January 2007) was an American journalist specializing in Texas politics and culture, and in national politics.

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• All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don’t think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it’s all marvelous fun. ^[1]

• There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity... The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That's what I do. —quoted in People magazine interview, 1991. ^[2]

• On a personal note: I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I intend to recover. I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done. ^[3]

• My friend Mercedes Pena made me get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as I suspected, they were awful. "How do you Latinas do this—all the time in touch with your emotions?" I asked her. "That's why we take siestas," she replied. .^[4]

• Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.^[5]

• I just finished with nine months of treatment for cancer. First they poison you, then they mutilate you, then they burn you. I’ve had more fun. And when it’s over, you’re so glad that you’re grateful to absolutely everyone. And I am. The trouble is, I’m not a better person. I was in great hopes that confronting my own mortality would make me deeper, more thoughtful. Many lovely people sent books on how to find a more spiritual meaning in life. My response was, ‘Oh, hell, I can’t go on a spiritual journey—I’m constipated.” ^[6]

• 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.—quoted by John Nichols for The Nation^[7]. Original source: "The Fun's in the Fight" column for Mother Jones, 1993 ^[8]

• On Bill Clinton: "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal." (Introduction to You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You)^[9]

• On the Iraq War:

"(T)he greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? The risks of an invasion setting off reactions from a hideous civil war in Iraq to toppling regimes all over the Middle East is very real. Also at risk is the very international cooperation necessary to track Al Qaeda.

"There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now. We are brushing off world opinion as though it mattered not a whit what other people think of us." (November 19, 2002)^[10]

"I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, 'Horrible three-way civil war?'" (January 16, 2003)^[11]

• "The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention."

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• I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.

• Of the Reagan Administration, she said, “Half of it was under average—the other half was under indictment.”

• Of Pat Buchanan’s culture war speech at the 1992 Republican convention, she said, “It read better in the original German.”

• I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.

• On How to survive Newt Gingrich: “Ah, my friends, rejoice. These are frabjous days. Our nation survived eight years of Ronald Reagan as President. We can survive this, too. We can even laugh. All it takes is a strong stomach.”

• On Rush Limbaugh: "I'm not entirely neutral in this regard. I've been attacked on his show. It doesn't particularly hurt, but it kind of leaves you with a slimy feeling afterward. Kind of being nibbled on the ankle by a slug." (speech broadcast on NPR)

• On Deregulation: “When last we left that merry band of Republican brothers in Congress, they were deregulating shit on beef.”

• On Clinton’s sex scandal: “I do not believe the President’s sex life is any of our business. After thirty years of political reporting, I have been unable to establish a link between marital fidelity and high performance in public office. It really doesn’t matter who they screw in private, as long as they don’t screw the public.”

• On Clinton’s sex scandal: “With all due respect to the President’s private parts, we do have bigger problems in this country.”

• On the Failure of Democracy: “One reason I really like living in a democracy is that the citizens get what they want. I know you’ve all noticed the widespread grassroots movement surging with people rallying behind banners that say, ‘We want banks and stockbrokers to merge,’ ‘We love this system of campaign financing,’ ‘We want dirtier air and dirtier water,’ ‘We demand tax breaks for the rich,’ ‘We want fewer services for the rest of us,’ ‘Don’t fix our schools,’ ‘More downsizing,’ and ‘Tax breaks for corporations moving to Mexico.’

• These Gore people have no idea how to steal an election. What happened to the Democrats? They used to have some skill at this.

• I’ve been trying to find the depths in Bush’s shallow. . . . Maybe we should add a rule that we can’t invade any country the President can’t pronounce.

• My worry is that Bush is painting himself into a corner with his rhetoric. This is not a war; it’s a gigantic police operation in the face of a crime beyond all understanding. . . .

• Back home in Texas, and the sign outside our neighborhood strip joint says, “Hot Babes, Cold Beer, Nuke ’Em, GW.

• Despite frequent reports from patriotic news media, I am unpersuaded that since September 11, George W. Bush has become a giant among men. . . . A year ago, he couldn’t tell the Grecians from the Timorians, and now he’s stuck with the mother of all foreign policy crises. . . . I’m praying for him. Mostly what I pray is, ‘Dear Lord, please don’t let Dubya screw this one up.’

• It’s hard to convince people you are bombing that you’re doing it for their own good.

• Enron is the gift that keeps on giving. Yes, there is joy in Mudville. Wallow away.

• Bush is the mascot of crony capitalism.

• There are three things one must not do in the face of electoral disaster. Whine. Despair. Or fall for that specious old radical crap: ‘Things have to get worse before they can get better.’ The only possible response to that one is, ‘Not with my child’s life.’ Nor is it helpful to sit around hoping that given enough rope, the R’s will hang themselves. They’ll hang us along with them. The only thing to do is to fight harder and smarter.

• You have to admit: The corporations are getting prompt service from Republicans in return for their donations.

• Well, beloveds, it looks like war. I want to talk to all of you who tried to stop this. You did not fight in vain.

• So constant is the reiteration of the words ‘coalition,’ ‘coalition forces,’ and ‘coalition position’ that you might assume one actually exists. . . . Eritrea and Ethiopia do not a coalition make.

• We knew going in this was going to be the peace from hell, and so far the Administration has made every misstep possible.

• I have a suggestion for a withdrawal deadline: Let’s leave Iraq before we’ve killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein did.

• Robert Novak and Charles Krauthammer both claim to have “never seen anything like the detestation of Bush. . . . Oh, I stretch memory way back, so far back, all the way back to—our last President. Almost lost in the mists of time though it is, I not only remember eight years of relentless attacks from Clinton-haters, I also notice they haven’t let up yet. . . . ‘The puzzle is where this depth of feeling comes from,’ mused the ineffable Krauthammer. Gosh, what a puzzle that is. How could anyone not be just crazy about George W. Bush?

• I realize this is not breaking news, but we are looking at something exceptional in political history with this race. . . . The Internet is breaking open old power structures and set ways of doing things. Most campaign consultants have no idea what do with it or about it. How delightful.

• Being curious, taking an interest in other cultures, and enjoying travel were all characteristics of Bill Clinton. . . . Bush pretty much embodies the reverse. . . . He’s not bright enough to be President. . . . He neither reads, nor writes, nor speaks well. It turns out that a C average is not good enough for the Presidency.

• No one can spin away a mess as big as Iraq. Recognizing reality may not solve a problem. but it has to be the start of any solution.

• Then there’s Bush’s slightly alarming claim to the Amish on July 9 that God speaks through him. That’s what he said, God speaks through him. This raises some troubling prospects. First of all, I think God has a better grasp of subject-verb agreement than George W. Bush do. Also, when Bush changes his mind, as he frequently does, do we conclude that God had to rethink things after the polls came out?

• I can think of nothing more likely to convince the people not to vote for Republicans again for a long, long time than four more years of George W. Bush. . . . Of course we’ll laugh again, progressives. But I am into action now. So let’s have at ’em.

• Friends, soulwise, these are trying times. Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of our country, and it won’t help if you all cower in places like Madison and the Upper West Side, having hot fantods over the approach of fascism. To the barricades, team. And for Lord’s sake, don’t leave your sense of humor behind.

• On Tom Delay: "The guy smells like a slop jar.”

• You can stick a fork in Bush, he’s done. It’s all over except for the next three years, and if that doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you, you haven’t got a lick of sense.”

• Either we figure out how to keep corporate cash out of the political system, or we lose the democracy.”

• On Immigration: “The Fence will not work. No fence will work. The Great darn Wall of China will not work. Undocumented immigrants will come anyway. Over, under, or through. Anyone who says a fence can fix this problem is a demagogue and an ass.”

• Listen, a populist is someone who is for the people and against the powerful, and so a populist is generally the same as a liberal—except we tend to have more fun.”

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