RIP Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins died today. Why do I care? I care because Molly was a very important part of this experiment in democracy. She was way, way, way out on the left, to be sure. She was an acerbic, harsh, unrelenting critic of all that is Conservative. She coined the phrase "Shrub" in reference to George W. Bush. She made a mission of dogging him through his governorship and into his presidency with obstinate, literate, unappologetic rhetoric.
She was my kind of gal. She was 100% Texan. I love Texans. They're crazy, like me.
So why was she so important? In my opinion there was not one ounce of "nuance" in the woman. She did not engage in the sort of Clintonian obfuscation and triangulation that pollutes the modern Democrat party. If she thought you were an ass, she said it.

We were all treated to the amusing, if terribly pathetic Joe Biden smearing black people with his incredible gaffe about Obama being a "clean" black man today. Tomorrow, Joe's spin-meisters will try to rearrange his stupidity to make it look like he meant "not tainted" which will only infer other black politicos ARE tainted. It will soon be buried by the Democrat media lapdogs.

Molly didn't play that way. I wonder if she ever felt the need to apologize for something she had said. I doubt it, because she meant what she said, and screw you if you didn't like it.

From the AP story:
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."

(I did ditch that particular date)

Having a balance of power in a democratic republic relies on extremes. I am one extreme. Molly was the polar opposite. The majority fall somewhere in between and make up the collective mind as best they can. That's the genius of this country and one of the reasons I love it so very much.

You might wonder why there was no clever title or snarky "gotcha" at the end of this post. The answer is simple. We needed Molly, she was good for this country, and she will be missed. God bless, Molly. RIP.