People asked me during the Iraq war if I was afraid to speak out. I said no.
— Molly Ivins
How come trying to explode myths about Texas always winds up reinforcing them?
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.
Sometimes misunderstandings between bloggers and the MSM are the result of simple ignorance.
A teenage foot that never tapped to 'Heartbreak Hotel' in the '50s probably belonged to a hopeless grind.
People like to help. They like to be able to do something for you. Let them.
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.
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.
It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there.
There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
Jimmy Carter was unquestionably the most moral president of my lifetime, but he wasn't much of a president.
Am I the only person covering politics who ever noticed that Newt Gingrich is actually a nincompoop?
The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.
Preemptive war is what Israel did in '67 with Arab armies on its borders.
I couldn't find any way to tell the truth in a regular newspaper.
I intensely covered Bush when he was Governor of Texas.
The trouble with capitalism as a system is that only those who have or can get capital can make it work for them, and that leaves out damn near all of us.
I'm happy to be called a liberal.
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.
Truly, if you can't cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you should not be covering a presidential campaign.
There is never anyone quite so wonderful as the people who were seniors when you were a freshman.
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.
In Congress, there are some who are unashamed to aspire to eloquence, even to scholarship, but the only state legislator I ever knew who would not join in the mispronounceciation of a word for the sake of camaraderie with her fellows was former State Senator and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
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.'
Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.
For years, I have been trying to persuade people that George W. Bush, although no Einstein, is not stupid.
One of the few things I like about Bill Clinton is that he has very good manners. If his momma were still alive, I would congratulate her.
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!'
I spend most of my life feeling like I've been shot out of a cannon.
When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.
The Kurds will not be allowed to have an independent country because Turkey wouldn't stand for it; they have their own Kurdish population.
I had sort of given up on conventional journalism. I found it far too restrictive.
New York is just as provincial as anyone else.
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.
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.
Truth is, I've spent much of my life trying, unsuccessfully, to explode the myths about Texas.
I do object to those who jump from political hackery to flackery and expect respect.
The idols of one's adolescence tend to endure - you never forget how you worshipped them.
Losing a part of a breast or all of one or both has, obviously, serious psychological consequences.
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.
Public campaign financing isn't perfect and can doubtlessly be improved upon as we go.
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.
If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
The greatest moral leader of my lifetime was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life does not bear close examination.
From orphanages to space colonies, it was all shallow but endearingly enthusiastic futurism. Gingrich was the kind of person who read a book or two on something and would then be quite afire as to how this was going to fit into some shining future.
I saw a shrink because I thought I suffered from fear of success.
I only aim at the powerful.
I really think the single most important thing to remember about trying to fix the schools is that there is no such thing as an instant result.
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.
I think one can easily make a case for taking out Saddam Hussein. In fact, one could probably be made on humanitarian grounds alone. But just as there's a downside risk to doing nothing about this man, there is a very serious downside risk to invading the country.
