Molly Ivins -- 'a truth-seeking missile'
Columnist Molly Ivins was a feisty truth-teller
unafraid to battle those who prevented a better world.
By Kinky Friedman
KINKY FRIEDMAN is an author, musician and former
candidate for governor of Texas.
February 4, 2007
A true maverick died in Texas last week, and they
don't make 'em extra.
There'll always be plenty of George Bushes and John
Kerrys to go around; the Crips and the Bloods will
trot them out every four years whether we like it or
not. But a voice in the wilderness, like the still,
small voice within, is a song to be savored while we
have it, whether we're listening or not, and when we
have lost it, we should mourn for ourselves. Such a
voice was that of Molly Ivins.
I met her on the gangplank of Noah's ark. I did not
agree with her on a lot of things. Like Sinatra, I've
gotten more conservative as I've gotten older. But not
Molly. With the awkward grace of a child of our times,
she clung to her ideals and notions and hopes, riding
against the wind in a state as red as the blood of a
dying cowboy. The word I'm looking for is "righteous."
Righteous without being self-righteous.
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.
In an age in which the five major religions are Bank
of America, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried
Chicken and Starbucks, Molly Ivins was an atheist. The
New York Times, which got Herman Melville's name wrong
in his obituary, called Molly a "liberal newspaper
columnist." The Los Angeles Times said she was a
"political humorist and best-selling author." They
were right, of course, but those are the words we use
when we don't know what to say.
In her dark, American heart, Molly was mostly a
troublemaker in the feisty spirit of Jesus Christ,
John Brown, Joe Hill and, not to be a male chauvinist
or needlessly alliterative, Joan of Arc and Josephine
Baker. Two, and possibly three, among this esteemed
and reviled assemblage spent time in France. Molly
studied in Paris. I do not like France. I do not know
what Molly thought of that country. I know she loved
this one.
It is, however, the sacred duty of the troublemaker to
stir the putrid pot of humanity every now and again,
to make people see that there is something more
important than political correctness and that is moral
correctness, and to challenge the prayers and the
promises of the heartbroken land she loved. And she
did it mostly with wit and humor, the kind of humor
that sailed dangerously close to the truth without
sinking the ship. There are two kinds of sailors, they
say: the sailor who fights the sea and the sailor who
loves the sea. Molly loved the sea.
I loved Molly because she would say things nobody else
had the cojones to say, always in a funny and charming
Texas way, of course. Imagine a big, brazen cowgirl
walking up and saying, "That boy's jeans are on so
tight, if he farted he'd blow his boots off."
My dad, Tom, was a World War II hero, and Molly had
long been one of his heroes, though he had never met
her. After he had a heart attack, Molly showed up on
our doorstep one afternoon just to visit with him.
Molly lifted his spirits and her gesture touched him
deeply, as it did his son.
Finally, Molly gave me the greatest slogan I had in my
recent campaign for governor of Texas. The slogan was,
"Why the hell not?" Why the hell not, indeed. In this
homogenized, trivialized, sanitized world, she stands
as a lighthouse not just to the left but to us all.
Peace be with you, Molly. |
