IN MEMORY OF MOLLY IVINS
There was a delightful interview with Molly Ivins on Booknotes on C-Span this
Saturday and Sunday. It was a vintage film from 1998, to honor Ms Ivins memory.
Molly was such a brilliant writer and a wonderful human being. She pulled no
punches and wrote and spoke from the bottom of her heart. Whenever or where ever she appeared, there was always a presence of smiles and laughter because of her powerful wit. She will be so missed especially in these humorless days of
pessimism. Molly, the world will never be the same without you. Thinkingblue
IN MEMORY OF MOLLY IVINS. A BRIAN LAMB INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY IVINS.
April 26, 1998
From C-Span BookTV
A Brian Lamb interview with Molly Ivins
Also on booknotes with transcript
On Molly Ivins Mona Gable
READ MORE: Molly Ivins, Iraq
I was going to write about the spineless resolution on the troop surge in Iraq that Carl Levin forged with John Warner today. But then Molly Ivins died after her own weary battle with breast cancer and, well, all hell broke loose. With her fierce and unrelenting criticism of Bush and his misadventures in Iraq, her death seemed too ironic and significant to let pass without comment.
I never met Molly Ivins, but she was an inspiration to me and a generation of other women reporters. I'd read one of Ivins' smart-mouthed political columns and think wickedly, Can you actually say that? And the answer was an astonishing yes. She was the only person besides my friend Sue, who once lived in Austin, who made me seriously consider taking a job in Texas.
Ivins was the first female political columnist to ascend from the trenches to become a star. In a profession dominated by self-important and uptight males, she was like a shot of Irish whiskey. Bracing and smart. But best of all she was tough and unafraid. She said what she thought and didn't apologize for it. She spoke for people who didn't have a voice. She was proud of being a liberal. Who else would have thought to call the Commander in Chief, the ersatz cowboy in Crawford, the self-described "Decider" "Shrub"? Ouch.
Even as she lay dying she continued to attack Bush's policies in Iraq.
Here is what Ivins wrote on January 11:
"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'" We also need a courageous bunch of Senators, ones who are willing to stop thinking about 2008 for a half second and take a stand. That's something Molly Ivins understood.
Now if only she were here to see it through.
Remembering Molly
by Bill Moyers
What a foot-stompin’ reunion there must be at this very moment in that great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky. I can see them now—Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Upton Sinclair, Henry Demarest Lloyd, Ida B. Wells, David Graham Phillips, George Seldes, I. F. Stone, Walter Karp, Willie Morris—welcoming our darlin’ to their bosoms.
Oh, my, how she comes trailing clouds of truth-telling glory! Look at her—big-hearted as ever, leaning over the balustrade and reaching down to the tormented of Hades, moistening Tom DeLay’s lips, patting down Bob Perry's hair, erasing George W's sandstone scribblings. In the celestial light she glows as irrepressibly and vividly as she did here on Earth, where she made the mighty humble, the wicked ashamed, and the good ol' boys reach for the barrel to hide their forlorn nakedness. And, oh, the stories she must be telling as we speak.
At a PBS meeting a few years ago, she ended her talk with a joke that would have gotten anyone else arrested or excommunicated. But she was carried out on the crowd's shoulders, as right now she is being ushered into the Council of Ink-Stained Immortals, where the only religion is truth. Save some room up there, Molly: You have inspired us earthbound wretches to keep trying to live up to your legacy in the hope of joining you there one day.
REST IN PEACE DEAR MOLLY
posted by thinkingblue at 5:04 PM
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