Feb. 01, 2007 - 20:24 MST

FAREWELL MOLLY

There are a few columnists I have loved, one was Gene Amole of The Rocky Mountain News, Cokie Roberts along with her hubby Steven V., vibrant vital people all and ones who did not or don't suffer fools gladly.

There is an article in today's The Rocky Mountain News by Kelley Shannon of The Associated Press that carries some very sad news indeed. Quoted in full here:

POLITICAL WRITER, WIT IVINS DIES

Breast cancer claims columnist who dubbed President Bush 'Shrub'

AUSTIN, Texas -- "Best selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as "Shrub," died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62."

"David Pasztor, managing editor of The Texas Observer, confirmed her death."

"The writer who made a living poking fun at Texas politicians, whether they were in her home base of Austin or the White House, revealed in early 2006 that she was being treated for breast cancer for the third time."

"More than 400 newspapers subscribed to her nationally syndicated column, including The Rocky Mountain News."

Ivin's illness did not seem to hurt her ability to deliver biting one-liners. "I'm sorry to say (cancer) can kill you but it doesn't make you a better person," she said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News in September, the same month cancer claimed her friend fromer Gov. Ann Richards."

" To Ivins, "liberal" wasn't an insult term. "Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left; there's nothing you can do about being born liberal -- fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed," she wrote in a column included in her 1998 collection, You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You."

"In a column in mid-January, Ivins urged readers to stand up against Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq."

"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," Ivins wrote in the Jan. 11 column. "We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop It Now !"

"Ivin's best-selling books included those she co-authored with Lou Dubose about Bush. One was titled "Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush." Another was "BUSHWHACKED: Life in George W. Bush's America."

"Ivins jolting satire was directed at people in positions of power. She maintained that aiming at the powerless would be cruel."

"Born Mary Tyler Ivins, the California native grew up in Houston. She graduated from Smith College in 1966 and studied journalism at Columbia University. Her first newspaper job was in the complaint department of the Houston Chronicle. She then went to the Minneapolis Tribune, becoming the first woman police reporter in the city. Ivins counted as her highest honors that Minneapolis police named their mascot pig for her."

"In 1996, The Denver Press Club honored Ivins with its Damon Runyon Award for outstanding contributions to journalism."

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For a time her columns were bylined Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then she went syndicated. I don't think there was a column of hers I missed in our paper and for the most part agreed with. After all I am a liberal and not ashamed to say hold the feelings of a Democrat. I came up (as far as I came) the hard way, worked for the man (who for the most part was a hard-line Republican anti-union type) for hourly wages and have little respect for those namby-pamby CEOs who make millions for doing not much of any good thing and floating off as their company goes down with a golden parachute.

Gee, she was just a kid, 62 years old. She had more smarts than I'll ever have, I will miss her.

I'm sure she had some warts, don't most of us ? But for me Molly was family, very much loved for who and what she was.

I wonder if there will be someone who can take up the gauntlet where she laid it down ?

May we meet on the other side, 'til then FAREWELL MOLLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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