furrbear | (no subject)

Over at Salon.com Anne Lamont blogs..

What's missing from this election? Molly Ivins
The late buckaroo populist and freedom fighter would have had a ball with the insanity of this current news cycle.
By Anne Lamott

AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez, Pool

Carlton Carl, right, gets a hug from Elna Christopher, left, during a memorial service for Molly Ivins Feb. 4, 2007, in Austin, Texas.

Oct. 3, 2008 | It breaks a girl's heart to know that Molly Ivins does not get to have a go at the Republican slate this year. I can see that big, rosy, sunflower face watching this all with astonishment and roaring with laughter. Ivins -- the legendary buckaroo populist, journalist, freelance hell-raiser and freedom fighter -- would be pounding her fists on the arms of her easy chair, stomping her feet as if listening to live bluegrass.

She would have had such a ball with Sarah Palin -- the trooper scandal, her love of moose (between buns), the flamboyantly botched television interviews, the bravery of people who hunt wolves for sport, from the air. Even though Molly was a Texan -- who would have been on guard for the sneering tone of liberal criticism toward anyone with a gun or a double-wide -- she still would have obliterated Palin as a faux populist wingnut with a tanning bed instead of a heart. She would have made great hay with the capacity of certain politicians to reinvent themselves in entirely new realities, as newfound populist Brotherman McCain has done, and his desperate, icky laugh of contempt might have raised some worries for her.