Molly Ivins
By Callimachus | Related entries in Dumb Things Said By Smart People, Good Decisions, Media, Partisan HacksProtein Wisdom once did a tasty send-up of Molly Ivins:
Well howdy, this here’s Molly Ivins, nationally syndicated pain-in-the-ass, Official State Hemorrhoid of Texas, warning track liberal, & all-around hoot & a holler. In case you’re wondering why I sound like Minnie Pearl, that’s my schtick, okay? I been flogging it for 50 years, I cain’t think of anything new, so piss on a midget if you don’t like it.
I’ve aimed a pea-shooter at her sometimes, too.
But a friend called my attention to this recent column of hers.
Ivins had written that the U.S. occupation of Iraq had killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. A lot of war supporters jumped all over her for that. I let it slide. There’s too much hallucination in the “Reality Based Community” to catch it all.
If you read down through this latest column, to where it says “CROW EATEN HERE,” she actually retracts it, and gives the details of why she was wrong.
This is a horror. In a column written June 28, I asserted that more Iraqis (civilians) had now been killed in this war than had been killed by Saddam Hussein over his 24-year rule. WRONG. Really, really wrong.
The only problem is figuring out by how large a factor I was wrong.
It was the honest thing to do. And I’ll acknowledge her for it here. And yes, it’s a shame that something that ought to be de rigueur surprises me.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 and is filed under Dumb Things Said By Smart People, Good Decisions, Media, Partisan Hacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 13th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
Good for her.
Personally, I like Ivins and I think she often makes some pretty valid points, but she went to far down the “we killed more than they did” rabbit hole. It’s good to see her say “I was wrong.” I can’t help but feel this is going to promote some amount of healing within the reasonable middle.
July 13th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
Does this mean that she’s going to stop spelling “government” as “gummint”? Does this mean that I will no longer hear ambient banjo music when I read her column?
And she writes: “I was certainly under no illusions regarding Saddam Hussein, whom I have opposed through human rights work for decades.”
In all of those decades of pestering Saddam Hussein for human rights abuses, she never noticed that he had murdered hundreds of thousands of people?
We’re getting pretty desperate in our search for sanity, here.
July 13th, 2005 at 11:38 pm
For my part I’m having a hard time imagining that a writer who has hitched her career to the gravy train of writing about the despicable details of Southern conservatives, and George W. Bush in particular, is ever going to be much use to a political center.
July 14th, 2005 at 11:06 am
“… a writer who has hitched her career to the gravy train of writing about the despicable details of Southern conservatives … is [n]ever going to be much use to a political center.”
Respectfully disagree. Her career has been hitched to writing about the despicable details of Texas politics in general — when Democrats controlled the state she was hard on them. Now the other guys are in the catbird seat –since she’s plinking away in the same direction as always she’s now more likely to hit Rep than Dems. Eh.
It’s interesting to me how she combines excellent observation and reportage on the process of politics with truly wrong-headed analysis of the same. For instance her books are full of examples that could go straight into a “public choice economics” textbook — where cartels of florists, undertakers, hair dressers and real estate agents all converge on the Texas Legislature clamoring to be protected — or “regulated”. She sees and tells that current owners of such businesses will be grandfathered into sinecures while any upstart competitors will be force to jump thru prohibitive legal hoops — then comes out in FAVOR of regulation anyhow. “Bless their hearts, they’re small town citizens trying to make this poor sorry corner of the world a safer place and if they put a few dollars in their pockets doin’ it, well who’s got a problem with that?’
July 14th, 2005 at 11:15 am
Agreed Pouncer.
Sure, she’s hitched her wagon to that gravy train, but the gravy has been flowing for quite some time. Texas politics has been shown to be particularly suspect (redistricting, DeLay’s fundraising, Dems hightailing it out of the state) so Ivins hasn’t really ever had to do much searching for things to write about.
July 14th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
But what sort of market did she have as a writer about Texas politics vs. her stature now as a writer about the Bush dynasty?
July 14th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
She still writes about both. But you can’t fault somebody for writing about something they know a lot about.
July 15th, 2005 at 12:07 am
So do tell – did her realization that she had her facts fantastically wrong lead her to modify any of her conclusions?
July 15th, 2005 at 1:33 am
I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. ;-)
July 15th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Now if a conservative could ever apologize for making an error, we’d really be on to something…
February 1st, 2007 at 10:06 am
Good riddance Molly Ivins…It ‘s a great day in Texas!
February 1st, 2007 at 1:16 pm
In addition to being someone who had long covered Texas politics, Molly actually knew W from as far back as high school. (Her father was an oil executive — she and young Bush shared a similar Houston social set.) So it was natural, when he began to make a political career in Texas, and after he moved on to the national scene, that she would, and would be asked to, write about him. (By the way, Molly shared with Bush the trait of presenting themselves in a manner quite a bit more folksy than their upbringing makes credible.)
It may be that those who don’t get her humor find it difficult or unseemly to laugh human foibles and frailties in general because its too close to laughing at themselves. Ivins made no bones about being a liberal, but her wit was aimed at Democrats and Republicans alike. Like anyone with a long writing career, some of her efforts were much less successful than others, still, when she was in top form she could make you laugh from the very bottom of your soul. Not because she was writing about Republicans, or Democrats, but because she was writing about — and beautifully puncturing — human absurdity, and our great capacity for self-delusion, dishonesty and pretense.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Fuck you, Mark Powell. You’re an asshole. She just died of cancer. Have a heart, or at least a sense of social appropriateness.
Regardless of your thoughts on her political leanings, she cared deeply about her country and your state.
And she’s done more to keep things in line, to the benefit of Texas and the nation as a whole, than I’m betting you ever will.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Mark, get a life.
John, watch the language. We don’t tolerate that type of name calling on this site, even if it’s directed at somebody who deserves it.