By Diane SilverMolly Ivins is gone. She died yesterday of breast cancer, and we are all the poorer for her passing.
Today I woke up to hear a tribute to her on National Public Radio. There's a nice obit in The New York Times and another one at The Washington Post. Her final editor has a great remembrance at Creators Syndicate.
Today and possibly tomorrow and the next day, there will be many of these formal salutes. And Molly, the bestselling author and former NY Times reporter, will be celebrated by the powerful and the rich. Even ole' George W. Bush -- the Shrub himself -- has already issued a statement of condolence.
But you and I know the truth. Molly wasn't a creature of presidents. She wasn't for the rich. She wasn't for the powerful, or even the famous. Molly was for you and me. She was the laughter, the skewering wit and the wisdom of those with no power. She was the truth we didn't know how to say, at least not until Molly said it first.
We will miss you so much, Molly. Thank you for showing us the way. It's our turn now.
3 comments:
I woke up writing a post about Molly Ivins in my head, but I see Diane actually got up and did it. I started reading Molly when she was writing for the Texas Observer back in the 1970s and I've been a fan ever since.
Molly was that rare breed, the Texas Liberal (I won't call it a dying breed, because I suspect there are about as many of us as there ever were, but it's never been a large group.) She was both all Texas and all liberal -- her roots were solid and so were her politics.
That's the kind of Texan I am, the kind I was raised to be. It's one of the reasons neither Molly nor I had much use for Dubya Bush.
It seems so unfair that we've lost both Ann Richards and Molly Ivins so close together -- two bright, funny, outrageous women who showed us that women could lead and could write and could do it while maintaining their own personalities and identities.
Molly should have been around another 20 or 30 years, keeping us on our toes.
I wrote this yesterday to a friend:
“Just found out that Molly Ivins had passed away last night. What a loss! I will certainly miss her sardonic wit. She had such a way with words: She could skewer the be-jesus out of political hacks; but, she was never mean or cruel when she left them flapping in the wind.”
Added thoughts today:
Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins: all grand dames - all gone. God bless them. I miss all of them. We are all the poorer for their loss. American, now more-than-ever, needs the kind of wit and WISDOM these magnificent Texans gave to all of us.
In Molly Ivin’s last column, she wrote about that person she nicknamed “Shrub”:
“The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it’s up to us. You and Me.” Sadly, now it’s only US to carry on the struggle or as Miss Molly said much better (brought back to our attention in E.J. Dionne‘s obit for Molly):
“Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t 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.” To follow this injunction, would be the most fitting tribute we could give this marvelous woman.
I too posted about Molly's passing. What a loss.
So we have to be twice as noisy, now. She would want us that way, after all.
Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and Harriet Woods, all in a few short months.
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