A reader on BuzzMachine… by Jeff Jarvis makes the following astute observation on Molly Ivins, Texas’ answer to Bob Scheer:
Until her dying day, Molly will never, never, ever get over the 1994 Texas gubenatorial election, so any comments she makes about U.S. policy, domestic (where at least she’s consistant) or foreign have to be seen in that light. If Bush did it, she’s against it, and one of these days, everyone else will see the light and Ann Richards will be avenged.
(Ironically, thanks to Molly’s connections to some of the key media elites due to her past work with the New York Times and current writings in publications like The Nation, too many media people out of New York and Washington have, since the mid-1980s, gone to Ms. Ivins for the inside stuff on what Texans are really thinking, which given Texas’ political leanings, is about like going to former New York City mayoral candidate William F. Buckley, Jr., to get the hot tips on the inner workings of the New York City Council. But that’s what they did in the late ’90s trying to get a handle on Bush, and its also when Molly coined the term “Shrub” and pretty much helped fix the image in many minds that Bush was an idiot, which helped cause the Gore campaign to “misunderestimate” him in the 2000 election.
Had Molly not had so much animus towards GWB over the ’94 election and had said to her friends outside of Texas, “Watch out for this guy, he’s craftier than he looks and sounds,” there’s a strong possibility the Gore people would have done a better job from the start of the campaign and Al would have been elected president. So Karl Rove ought to slip a few extra bucks in Ms. Ivin’s direction for her contribution to putting Bush over the top, and making the liberation of Iraq possible.)
Posted by John at May 22, 2003 05:44 PM
Word.
Heh. Thanks Molly!
Molly Ivens is to the accurate reporting of Texas Politics what Ivestia was to the USSR Central Committee; Once you understand the institutional biases, you can discover a great deal.
On another ( allied ) Point; the rules of the Texas Legislature specifically allow the Speaker ( or the President of the Senate ) to order the Detention and transportation of any “missing” members to the Statehouse if a Quorum is needed.
I think most Legislatures have similar rules on their books.
The “furor” over the Texas DPS’s efforts to find ( and hopefully return ) errant Legiscritters is silly, I keep waiting for some Commentator/pundit to remind the “outraged” that the LAW authorizes the Speaker/President to send the cops.
Have you guys even read Molly Ivins? (Do you know how to spell “gubernatorial”?). Actually she many many times made just the point you are asking her to make, that Bush is likable, charming, and wily and not to be misunderestimated. IIRC, she thinks he’s a fraud, she think’s he will come to be eponymous with crony capitolism, and she would certainly prefer someone else, maybe someone that would defend the constitution. (last part is my rag.)
Since when did they start writing Thank You George W. on our tax refund. I wasn’t so ammused I got less then I expected. I kept a copy of the envalope just incase you didn’t get one.