We'll Miss You, Molly

We’ll Miss You, Molly

Tuesday of this week, I received my renewal form for my long-time subscription to The Progressive magazine. Frankly, there are other news magazines that I prefer to The Progressive (such as The American Prospect). However, as the letter included with my renewal form was so quick to remind me, The Progressive did hold one hugely important advantage over its competitors as being home to a regular Molly Ivins column. As the letter began: “If there’s one thing that is worth the price of your subscription … it’s Molly Ivin’s column.” Truer words were never spoken!

Sad to say, growing up in a staunchly Republican family, I discovered Molly late in life. Perhaps the only advantage lay in the fact that, once I did stumble across one of her newspaper columns, I could act like the proverbial kid in a candy store, rushing to my nearest bookstore to load up on her published books and overdose on decades’ worth of her great wisdom and biting wit. I still keep at least one of her books by my bed at any one time, re-reading a former column or two before bedtime, as a sort of reward for a long day’s hard work.

Molly Ivins will sorely be missed. She was one of the last of a noble breed of political commentators who eschewed mere name calling and simplistic tautologies for the tougher task of composing intellectually-coherent arguments. And even when she got on a rant, as she occasionally did, and turned her biting satire against a particularly inept target (such as “the Shrub”), she did so less in an angry way than in a sort of chiding fashion, as if holding out the possibility of redemption for the targets of her ire should they only “wake up” to the folly of their ways. Never once can I recall Molly rhetorically casting someone into the very pits of hell, as so many of her conservative colleagues are wont to do (just read Cal Thomas’ column on peace demonstrators that appeared the day before Molly’s death was announced).

Above all, Molly Ivins had a deft way of using humor to make one think! Like a true progressive, questioning the status quo was her passion, and resignation to the injustices of the world her bête noir. Molly’s columns typically called on the reader to cast aside complacency and do something to better the world, least of all by making one’s voice heard so as to keep our elected representatives honest and responsive.

The news that Molly Ivins passed away on Wednesday, January 31 following a long battle with breast cancer should sadden us all. We’ve lost one of our greatest voices for social justice.

Peace (with sadness)!

Historian