Readers miss Molly Ivins’ unique wit

Editor’s Note: The Bangor Daily News welcomes Pat LaMarche as she begins a weekly column that will run each Wednesday.

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I miss Molly Ivins. How about you? If you have turned to this part of the OpEd page because you have done so every week for years, then I bet you miss her too. After all, she appeared here, in the Bangor Daily News – or in one of more than 300 other papers around the United States – nearly every single week since 1992. So I’m thinking that we aren’t the only ones who miss Molly.

And it’s no surprise that you long for her company. It has been a while since you’ve gotten a decent dose of that “authentic female voice,” as her good friend and longtime editor Anthony Zurcher described her.

Molly Ivins died of breast cancer on Jan. 30, and before that she was pretty sick. In fact, she had to dictate her last two columns because she was too weak to type.

But she was nothing if not driven. Zurcher further described Molly, underscoring her “passionate and eloquent defense of the poorest and the weakest among us against the corruption of the most powerful.”

I’d like to add a bit to that description: An additional commentary not from someone who knew her a little bit, but from someone who knew her not at all.

I knew Molly Ivins the same way that most other people knew her; when it came to gutsy women who told it like it was – Ivins was a rock star. She had the ability to critique politics in a way that made me laugh even as the actions of my government made me want to scream.

Most of us look at what happened at Abu Ghraib prison, know that we were lied to about the causes for the war, or cringe with the suspension of habeas corpus and just want to give up and quit trying. Ivins’ humor served as an antidote to this natural inclination to quit. Molly Ivins made us chuckle and that laughter burned off the fog of despair.

Her ability to taunt politicians helped those of us who admired her to continue working for “the poorest and the weakest among us.”

Molly let us know that doing the right thing wasn’t just necessary, it was fun. And that doing the wrong thing wasn’t just to be avoided, it was to be mocked.

She nicknamed the world’s buffoons and she used laughter against the cruelest of her enemies, even against her murderer, breast cancer. Molly explained when asked about the difficulty of her illness, “Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”

And so after decades as a journalist and an author and a commentator, Molly Ivins, like so many other lesser-known fine folks, has been silenced by her cancer.

And into her enormous empty shoes I step. This task would be even more immensely humbling if I had any idea why I’m willing to try to write this column in the first place.

I mean, look at me. The 2006 election’s over and I have no real reason to even pay attention any more. Why in the world would I be willing to stay current on all the news? Do I want to keep watching the good guys and the bad guys and the weak guys and the strong guys tug at my democracy until it’s so distorted that I can’t recognize it anymore?

And why on earth would I want to do it in the incredible empty space that Molly Ivins left behind?

Why?

Because her friend Zurcher said one other thing about her. He said, “Molly Ivins was a woman who loved and cared deeply for the world around her.”

And if that’s what it takes, then sign me up.

And anyway, who am I kidding? I couldn’t stop if I tried. I have tried! I can’t stop watching this train wreck that our government has become and heaven knows: I do love mocking it.

So if you don’t mind if the shoes I’m trying to fill are a bit too big, I’ll give it a try.

Pat LaMarche, a former Green candidate for governor and for vice president, can be contacted at PatLaMarche@hotmail.com.