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Molly Ivins
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I do object to those who jump from political hackery to flackery and expect respect.
- Molly Ivins
#Expect
#Jump
#Political
#Respect
#Who
It's one thing to recognize that the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing like a cancer; it's another thing to come up with useful solutions.
- Molly Ivins
#Gap
#Like
#Rich
#Up
#Useful
The Kurds will not be allowed to have an independent country because Turkey wouldn't stand for it; they have their own Kurdish population.
- Molly Ivins
#Country
#Independent
#Own
#Stand
#Will
The reason there is no noblesse oblige about Dubya is because he doesn't admit to himself or anyone else that he owes his entire life to being named George W. Bush. He didn't just get a head start by being his father's son - it remained the single most salient fact about him for most of his life.
- Molly Ivins
#Father
#Life
#Reason
#Son
#Start
People like to help. They like to be able to do something for you. Let them.
- Molly Ivins
#Able
#Help
#Like
#People
#Something
Preemptive war is what Israel did in '67 with Arab armies on its borders.
- Molly Ivins
#Arab
#Borders
#Did
#Israel
#War
The most unusual thing about Clinton as a pol is that he listens. Listens and remembers. If he does dance with them that brung him, not them that gave him big money, we will have a populist on our hands.
- Molly Ivins
#Big
#Dance
#Hands
#Money
#Will
I spent my girlhood as a Clydesdale among thoroughbreds.
- Molly Ivins
#Among
#Spent
People asked me during the Iraq war if I was afraid to speak out. I said no.
- Molly Ivins
#Afraid
#Me
#People
#Speak
#War
I'm sorry to say cancer can kill you, but it doesn't make you a better person.
- Molly Ivins
#Better Person
#Better
#Person
#Sorry
One nice thing about the benefit of long experience with la frontera is that we in Texas don't have to run around getting all hysterical about immigrants. The border is porous. When you want cheap labor, you open it up; when you don't, you shut it down. It works to our benefit - it always has.
- Molly Ivins
#Cheap
#Down
#Experience
#Long
#Nice
Laura Bush, it seems, is used to cast a softer light on her husband, who then proceeds to reverse whatever she's just promised.
- Molly Ivins
#Her
#Husband
#Light
#She
#Whatever
One seldom expects the country's president to adequately note the passing of a rocker, but Jimmy Carter's assessment of Elvis Presley's appeal - 'energy, rebelliousness and good humor' - is remarkably close to the mark.
- Molly Ivins
#Assessment
#Country
#Energy
#Good
#Humor
#Mark
I think provincialism is an endemic characteristic with mankind, I think everybody everywhere is provincial, but it is particularly striking with Texans, and we tend to be very Texcentric.
- Molly Ivins
#Everywhere
#Mankind
#Striking
#Think
'The New York Times' is a great newspaper: it is also No Fun.
- Molly Ivins
#Fun
#Great
#New York
#New
#Newspaper
The Internet goes doot-doot-doot - it goes sideways. There's nothing hierarchical about it. And the best thing about it is also the worst thing about it, which is there are no gatekeepers on the Internet. Consequently, there's a whole lot of bad information on the Internet. But I think that sorts itself out over time.
- Molly Ivins
#Bad
#Best
#Information
#Internet
#Time
If Bush does make it to the White House, he and Laura should have Ken Starr over for dinner.
- Molly Ivins
#Dinner
#He
#House
#Make
#White
Texas is still resistant to Howard Johnsons, interstate highways and some forms of phoniness. It is the place least likely to become a replica of everyplace else. It's authentically awful, comic, and weirdly charming, all at the same time.
- Molly Ivins
#Charming
#Comic
#Place
#Same
#Time
Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.
- Molly Ivins
#Accountability
#Laws
#Responsibility
Even for southerners, Arkansans are amazingly friendly and extend hospitality to all strangers with astonishing openness. You couldn't find a pretension in that state if you hunted from Jonesboro to El Dorado.
- Molly Ivins
#Find
#Friendly
#Hospitality
#Strangers
In all my fantasies, I always assumed I would get married and have six children along the way with the greatest of ease.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Children
#Ease
#Greatest
#Way
Losing a part of a breast or all of one or both has, obviously, serious psychological consequences.
- Molly Ivins
#Both
#Consequences
#Losing
#Serious
The Federal Reserve system obviously doesn't work anymore - they keep lowering the federal discount rate, and all that happens is that the banks are making a fortune, and the old folks' CDs are getting chewed up.
- Molly Ivins
#Fortune
#Happens
#Keep
#Old
#Work
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.
- Molly Ivins
#Being
#Born
#Fish
#Nothing
#Sorry
I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
- Molly Ivins
#Believe
#I Believe
#Prudence
#Three
#Two
I left the 'Trib' in 1970 with the feeling that I would never have a career in establishment media of any kind.
- Molly Ivins
#Career
#Feeling
#Left
#Media
#Never
I couldn't find any way to tell the truth in a regular newspaper.
- Molly Ivins
#Find
#Newspaper
#Tell
#Truth
#Way
Sometimes misunderstandings between bloggers and the MSM are the result of simple ignorance.
- Molly Ivins
#Ignorance
#Result
#Simple
#Sometimes
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
- Molly Ivins
#America
#People
#Refreshing
#Treat
I want to point out, there are a lot of politicians who enjoy the political end of politics, but they're not interested in governance. And then, there are some that are really interested in governance and are just terrible at politics.
- Molly Ivins
#End
#Political
#Politicians
#Politics
Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant - a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers.
- Molly Ivins
#Back
#Business
#Nation
#Proud
#Tradition
Rush Limbaugh's pathetic abuse of logic, his absurd pomposity, his relentless self-promotion, his ridiculous ego - now those, friends, are appropriate targets for satire.
- Molly Ivins
#Absurd
#Ego
#Logic
#Ridiculous
#Satire
Anyone who has ever spent time listening to a legislature knows the astonishing speed at which all presiding officers and reading clerks can spit out the formulaic incantations of parliamentary procedure.
- Molly Ivins
#Listening
#Reading
#Speed
#Time
#Who
And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Been
#Funny
#Me
#Optimist
For years, I have been trying to persuade people that George W. Bush, although no Einstein, is not stupid.
- Molly Ivins
#People
#Persuade
#Stupid
#Trying
#Years
Legislative language is governed by a law of etymology that is also the ancient code of the bureaucracy: It doesn't have to be right, it just has to be close enough for government work. If they understand what you mean, it doesn't matter what you say or how you say it.
- Molly Ivins
#Government
#Language
#Law
#Matter
#Work
Right before the Bush inauguration, many women were greatly reassured when Laura said of Roe v. Wade on the 'Today' show, 'No, I don't think it should be overturned.' Three days later, her husband reimposed the 'global gag rule' on groups abroad that receive U.S. funding for family planning.
- Molly Ivins
#Family
#Planning
#Three
#Today
#Women
The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.
- Molly Ivins
#Angry
#Black
#Late
#Time
#Women
Truly, if you can't cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you should not be covering a presidential campaign.
- Molly Ivins
#Campaign
#Cover
#Route
#Should
#Truly
As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic shih tzus in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.
- Molly Ivins
#Feel
#Feet
#Future
#Journalism
#Power
There is never anyone quite so wonderful as the people who were seniors when you were a freshman.
- Molly Ivins
#Never
#People
#Quite
#Who
#Wonderful
I don't have any children, so I've decided to claim all the future freedom-fighters and hell-raisers as my kin.
- Molly Ivins
#Any
#Children
#Claim
#Decided
#Future
Old-fashioned anti-immigrant prejudice always brings out some old-fashioned racists.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Old-Fashioned
#Prejudice
#Some
If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
- Molly Ivins
#Change
#Conflict
#Down
#First Step
#Step
Truth is, I've spent much of my life trying, unsuccessfully, to explode the myths about Texas.
- Molly Ivins
#Life
#My Life
#Myths
#Truth
#Trying
Some days, I'd feel better with Punxsutawney Phil in the Oval Office - at least he doesn't lie about the weather.
- Molly Ivins
#Better
#Days
#Feel
#Lie
#Weather
I've thought for years that newspapers should all be owned by nonprofits.
- Molly Ivins
#Owned
#Should
#Thought
#Years
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
- Molly Ivins
#Elected Officials
#Good
#Laugh
#More
#Us
To mistake Midland for the volk heartland is the West Texas equivalent of assuming that Greenwich, Connecticut, is Levittown.
- Molly Ivins
#Connecticut
#Mistake
#Texas
#West
The danger of the blogosphere is reading only those you agree with. While there are right-wing blogs that are entertaining freak shows, it's hard to find substantial journalism there.
- Molly Ivins
#Agree
#Danger
#Find
#Hard
#Journalism
I had sort of given up on conventional journalism. I found it far too restrictive.
- Molly Ivins
#Conventional
#Far
#Found
#Journalism
#Up
The reason I take Rush Limbaugh seriously is not because he's offensive or right-wing, but because he is one of the few people addressing a large group of disaffected people in this country. And despite his frequent denials, Limbaugh does indeed have a somewhat cult-like effect on his ditto heads.
- Molly Ivins
#Country
#Group
#People
#Reason
#Rush
It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there.
- Molly Ivins
#Idea
#Keep
#People
#Prison
#Them
I've always found it easier to be funny than to be serious.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Easier
#Found
#Funny
#Serious
I only aim at the powerful.
- Molly Ivins
#Aim
#Only
#Powerful
In most legislatures, punctilious attention to correct usage is considered elitist. The word 'government,' for example, is normally pronounced 'gummint'; bureaucracy is 'bureaucacy'; fiscal comes out 'physical,' and one moves not to suspend the rules, but to 'suppend.'
- Molly Ivins
#Attention
#Example
#Government
#Rules
I don't think I've decided much in my life. Don't you think life just happens?
- Molly Ivins
#Happens
#Just
#Life
#My Life
#Think
I worked through cancer twice. I probably worked through it too much the last time. This time, I found myself saying, 'Well, I don't feel well. I think I'll take the day off.' I think I did that even a little bit more than I needed to.
- Molly Ivins
#Day
#Feel
#Myself
#Through
#Time
I've always had trouble with male authority figures because my father was such a martinet.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Authority
#Father
#Male
#Trouble
When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.
- Molly Ivins
#Cruel
#Only
#Powerless
#Satire
#Vulgar
The extent to which not just state legislatures but the Congress of the United States are now run by large corporate special interests is beyond mere recognition as fact. The takeover is complete.
- Molly Ivins
#Beyond
#Congress
#Recognition
#Special
Arkansas, the state Bill Clinton loves and that loves him back, is a place with just no pretension at all.
- Molly Ivins
#Back
#Bill Clinton
#Just
#Place
#State
What we call politics now and what most political writers write about is the empathy and the bonding and the word choice and the horse rights, and it has nothing to do with what's really happening to people's lives.
- Molly Ivins
#Choice
#Empathy
#Political
#Politics
People in Midland are real nice folks: I can't prove that with statistics, but I know West Texas, and it's just a fact.
- Molly Ivins
#Know
#Nice
#People
#Real
#Statistics
You look at the large problems that we face - that would be overpopulation, water shortages, global warming and AIDS, I suppose - all of that needs international cooperation to be solved.
- Molly Ivins
#Cooperation
#Face
#Look
#Problems
#Water
If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
- Molly Ivins
#Enough
#Own
#Political
#Sense
#Up
Behind a smoke screen of high-profile female appointees and soothing slogans, George W. Bush is waging war on women.
- Molly Ivins
#Behind
#Screen
#Smoke
#War
#Women
A teenage foot that never tapped to 'Heartbreak Hotel' in the '50s probably belonged to a hopeless grind.
- Molly Ivins
#Foot
#Grind
#Hopeless
#Hotel
#Never
What I've been telling people is that the doctors are gaining on cancer very rapidly. It's almost become a chronic disease, like diabetes - something you can treat. It doesn't go away, and you're not well in the sense of being over it, but you go on and live your life.
- Molly Ivins
#Disease
#Life
#Live
#People
#Treat
I'm happy to be called a liberal.
- Molly Ivins
#Happy
#Liberal
We liberals do sometimes forsake our vows of compassion for all mankind.
- Molly Ivins
#Compassion
#Liberals
#Mankind
#Sometimes
One thing I have learned from Johnny Faulk, Texas, and life, is that since you don't always win, you got to learn to enjoy just fightin' the good fight.
- Molly Ivins
#Fight
#Good
#I Have Learned
#Life
#Win
Those who think of freedom in this country as one long, broad path leading ever onward and upward are dead damned wrong.
- Molly Ivins
#Country
#Dead
#Freedom
#Long
#Path
Havin' fun while freedom fightin' must be one of those lunatic Texas traits we get from the water - which is known to have lithium in it - because it goes all the way back to Sam Houston, surely the most lovable, the most human, and the funniest of all the great men this country has ever produced.
- Molly Ivins
#Freedom
#Fun
#Great
#Men
#Water
I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter - nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened.
- Molly Ivins
#Long
#Nothing
#Opinion
#Reporter
#Trying
In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster.
- Molly Ivins
#Country
#Disaster
#Food
#Society
#Truth
Public campaign financing isn't perfect and can doubtlessly be improved upon as we go.
- Molly Ivins
#Campaign
#Financing
#Go
#Perfect
#Public
If you grew up white before the civil rights movement anywhere in the South, all grown-ups lied. They'd tell you stuff like, 'Don't drink out of the colored fountain, dear, it's dirty.' In the white part of town, the white fountain was always covered with chewing gum and the marks of grubby kids' paws, and the colored fountain was always clean.
- Molly Ivins
#Clean
#Dirty
#Fountain
#Rights
#White
Here's the deal on Texas. It's big. So big, there's about five distinct and different places here, separated from one another geologically, topographically, botanically, ethnically, culturally, and climatically.
- Molly Ivins
#About
#Big
#Deal
#Here
#Places
I really do think we're going through a period of concentration of ownership of media, and we're starting to see the effects at the editorial level, and it's all bad. This increased pressure for profits every quarter, smaller news hole, less coverage of important stuff - the extent that it's become one giant infotainment industry.
- Molly Ivins
#Bad
#Important
#Media
#News
#Pressure
We need to reform the political system, or we'll lose the democracy. I don't think it's that hard. It doesn't take rocket science. We've done it before successfully at the presidential level and tried it several places at the state level.
- Molly Ivins
#Democracy
#Lose
#Political
#Science
There's been a lot of experience with torture in history. It doesn't work.
- Molly Ivins
#Been
#Experience
#History
#Torture
#Work
Rove, of course, is an exceptionally good, exceptionally skillful campaign guy, and Bush himself is really gifted at the political end of politics. But he's always been, as he says, misunderestimated.
- Molly Ivins
#Campaign
#End
#Good
#Political
#Politics
Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
- Molly Ivins
#Freedom
#Outrageous
#Rejoice
#Ridicule
Even after four years in office, George W. Bush's record on women doesn't leap out at you. It's composed almost entirely of little things, small enough to fly well under the media's radar screen, so few of us have any sense of their cumulative impact.
- Molly Ivins
#Fly
#Impact
#Little Things
#Media
#Women
There was really quite a remarkable level of sexism on newspapers when I started.
- Molly Ivins
#Level
#Remarkable
#Sexism
#Started
One of the things I said was that I had been in great hopes that I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person.
- Molly Ivins
#Better
#Great
#Never
#Person
#Result
When I was first diagnosed, I went out, as a book person, and got some books on cancer and looked up my version of the disease. It said that I had about a 5 percent chance of survival. I said, 'Gosh, well, it's been a good run.' What I didn't realize is that in the two years since those books were published, things had shifted dramatically.
- Molly Ivins
#Chance
#Disease
#Good
#Person
#Survival
It really is possible to disagree with someone's policies without hating them. Grown-ups can do that.
- Molly Ivins
#Disagree
#Possible
#Someone
#Without
Am I the only person covering politics who ever noticed that Newt Gingrich is actually a nincompoop?
- Molly Ivins
#Ever
#Only
#Person
#Politics
#Who
Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.
- Molly Ivins
#Being
#Get
#Like
#Paranoid
#Worse
Don't get me started about the media double standard.
- Molly Ivins
#About
#Double
#Get
#Me
#Media
One of the more urp-making habits of media mavens is presuming to speak for the American people, as in 'The American people won't stand for this!'
- Molly Ivins
#American
#Media
#People
#Speak
#Stand
So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
- Molly Ivins
#Forget
#Freedom
#Fun
#Justice
#Laughter
I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.
- Molly Ivins
#Evil
#I Believe That
#Ignorance
#Truth
I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.
- Molly Ivins
#Aim
#Cruel
#Only
#Powerful
#Satire
Those who imagine polygamy to be handy cover for promiscuity are apparently off the mark. If polygamists share one quality, it is that, polygamy aside, they are extraordinarily strait-laced.
- Molly Ivins
#Imagine
#Mark
#Quality
#Share
#Who
In order to understand why George W. Bush doesn't get it, you have to take several strands of common Texas attitude, then add an impressive degree of class-based obliviousness. What you end up with is a guy who sees himself as a perfectly nice fellow - and who is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people.
- Molly Ivins
#Attitude
#End
#Impact
#Nice
#People
#Why
I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.
- Molly Ivins
#Anything
#Funnier
#Never
#Politics
#Saw
#Texas
#Than
I have always been a left-winger and an outsider. I loved being that. I was perfectly cheerful with that role. Then suddenly, you're one of the talking heads on 'Nightline,' and you think you must have sold out.
- Molly Ivins
#Always
#Being
#Loved
#Outsider
#Talking
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