Molly Ivins Left Too Soon

Perhaps Texas' most famous liberal muckraker of all time, Molly Ivins, died recently, and much too soon. While she was almost universally called "liberal" and attacked President George W. "Shrub" Bush unmercifully, she certainly didn't spare her criticisms of anyone whom she thought was not morally true. She was unfailingly on the side of "right," no matter what.

I almost met Molly back in mid-November, when she was giving a talk entitled The Future of Journalism: Slow Death or Suicide? at UT's Hogg Auditorium. I wanted to hear her in person, of course -- she could spin a yarn better than almost anyone I've ever heard -- but I had a larger purpose. I wanted to tell her about this big scandal that reaches all the way into senior levels of the Bush Administration. I knew that if I could convince her that this scandal was both real and important, she would without a doubt have the courage to highlight it in her syndicated column.

When I got to Hogg, I asked the UT folks how I might chat with Molly after her talk. They didn't know, but said that her nephew had come to listen to her and was sitting in the Balcony, and they told me what he looked like. So I went upstairs, asked the usher where a young man of that description who had just came in might be sitting, and located him at the very back of the balcony.

I sat down next to him, introduced myself, and gave him a 30-second synopsis of the scandal. "Would that be the kind of thing that Molly would be interested in?" I asked. "Absolutely," he said. Would he be willing to pass on some background information to her about it? "Be glad to," he said. I gave him a manilla envelope filled with past articles about the scandal (that describe what I call the "tip of the iceberg"), copies of several of the 28 FAXes I've sent to the FBI with details of the scandal, POGO's FOIA request, and other stuff.

He said that he could tell that Molly was very weak just by how slowly and deliberately she was talking, and that she would probably be absolutely exhausted afterward, but he would likely have the chance give this information to her within the next few days.

I don't know if he ever got the chance to tell Molly what I had told him and to pass that information about the Traffic.com scandal on to her. I do know is that I never heard back from her about it. My guess is that she was just too weak from the cancer and chemotherapy by that time to spend the considerable energy required to understand how this complicated scandal works.

Molly just left this world too soon. Two very different individuals, both of whom I like and respect, have written very wonderful tributes to her.

Ralph Nader wrote a wonderful piece, called Molly Ivins Remembered, on his website. I particularly like a quote that he attributed to Molly:

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 you how much fun it was.

Molly's fellow Texas humorist, Kinky Friedman, wrote an equally touching piece entitled Molly Ivins -- a truth-seeking missile. Kinky's piece is likewise wonderful, and in it he gives just a hint of his outragious sense of humor when he says:

Molly was a truth-seeking missile. She was a devil and an angel and a spiritual chop-buster who went after anybody who got in the way of a better world. Quite often she towered above the people she wrote about. They, as likely as not, were merely the slick, lubricated heads of well-oiled political machines; she was a dreamer, a little girl lost at the county fair, who somehow grew up to be a brave and bawdy and brilliant ball-buster in a state where men have always been men and emus have always been nervous.

Jerry