Molly Ivins is dead

She passed away from cancer here in Texas this afternoon. Her columns were thoroughly partisan, and made me angry more often than not, but she often made me laugh, which in my book covers a multitude of sins. And when she hit a target, it was a splendid thing to read, especially when she showed politicians given breaks to the rich and powerful, and the shaft to the little guy. Fair or not, she wrote with a fierce humanity. She was -- and I mean this as a serious compliment -- a Texas broad. I love broads, especially when they have a mouth on 'em. I like to think this passage from a column during the Bush-Gore Florida shootout was ... well, it wasn't typical Molly Ivins, but it was Molly Ivins at her best. R.I.P.:

Here's the challenge: Let's everybody with a dog in this fight -- meaning either pro-Gore or pro-Bush -- be obliged to make the case for the other side for at least 15 minutes.

Because I think we're watching something important, quite aside from the fate of the nation and the future of The World's Greatest Democracy (except for Florida).

In a mild and in some ways not terribly important case (I may have to eat those words), we're watching why wars start. What we see is the constant presentation -- because the media love to polarize -- of people who are apparently incapable of imagining what the situation looks like from somebody else's point of view.

UPDATE: What was I thinking? Jeez, how wrong-headed and mealy-mouthed was that?! Saying Molly Ivins was at her best when she was being nice is like saying H.L. Mencken was never better than when he scratched poltroons behind the ears. Check out this archive from the Texas Observer. Right, left or otherwise, if more newspaper columnists wrote with her style, we'd sell a lot more newspapers.