Talk:Molly Ivins

"The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention." -- The late columnist Molly Ivins quoted during her memorial service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday. The Associated Press reports that this quip brought the crowd of mourners to its feet.

I'm afraid learning how to wikify the refs is off my radar; many eyeballs pls compensate.
--Jerzy•t 16:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Molly Ivins. --Antiquary 18:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

• 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.”

• 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.”