An Ornery, Funny, Insightful Rabble-Rouser

They say she died with her boots on.

Whether truth or folklore, I chose to believe it. When they said Molly Ivins wrote until the bitter end, it made sense to me.

Before going Up Yonder, she got in one last dig at "Shrub" over the troop surge.

"We are the people who run this country," the syndicated columnist wrote. "We are the deciders. And every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to stop this war."

It was a battle hymn for the republic. A call to arms. Great stuff.

In a 2006 column she shot down Hillary's presidential aspirations. The column by the contributor to Mother Jones and The Nation ran online in The Free Press under the headline, "I will not support Hillary Clinton for president." She was spot-on. (So was Frank Rich recently, by the way.)

I'll tell you something about Molly's boots.

I met her at Columbia University when we sat on the same jury to judge the Pulitzer Prizes. I had read the famous journalist and author, and heard she was a real hoot. I saw for myself in New York when we finished judging the prizes and she put her boots on the table. She was the original Miss Texas, one with a tiara in the recess of a Stetson or Resistol.

Whenever at Columbia, she spoke with journalism students. She did that in a lot of college towns. She may have been famous, but she humbly insisted that the great journalism tradition of truth-telling be passed on.

She was a real mother-trucker, too. In his tribute, former Fort Worth Star-Telegram editor Mike Blackman wrote of how she drove around Austin "in her new 18-wheeler pickup (gussied up like some LaGrange parlor)."

None like her. She was Baxter Black with breasts -- when she had them.

She was funny even when she wrote about her cancer, as in a 2002 Time magazine column "Who needs breasts anyway?" "Just a happy, flat-chested woman," she wrote.

When the chemo took her hair, the old gal still had the gift. A terrific belly laugh. This kind of woman, you think, would grab cancer by the cojones and say, "This all you got?"

It wasn't, of course.

At least she's not in pain anymore.

Some considered her brash and partisan. But the Dems got it as much as the R's. Truth is, she was a civil libertarian and promoter of good and honest government. Those passions we shared.

Before there were Red States and Blue States, there was the straight-shooting Redhead. She called herself a (expletive deleted) bomb thrower." Got to admit she had good aim.

Even though the chemo made her weak, she kept her wit and wits about her. Molly's best work came at the end, I believe.

Years ago I introduced Molly at the Cockefair luncheon at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Pregnant at the time, I hailed her as "the mother of my unborn child."

Because God has a sense of humor, Molly lived long enough to see the lesbian daughter of a neo-con vice president pregnant with another woman's child. Ironic and hilarious, ain't it?

She did a better impression of Ross Perot than Perot. Sounded like a Chihuahua stuck in a doggie door. She was audacious, outrageous and seldom wrong. Full-bodied in every sense.

Here's what she wrote in the Star-Telegram in 1992 of Perot's running mate: "(Admiral James) Stockdale is admirable in many ways, but he is no democrat, and he could no more function as president than he could put on a tutu and dance 'Swan Lake.' That leaves Clinton. I reserve the right to make fun of Bill Clinton from now to infinity, but he is bright (actually, amazingly bright), and he has a sense of humor about the world and about himself."

Molly went to Fort Worth after her Dallas newspaper folded. When it did, she wrote: "My newspaper died the other day. I'd worked for the Dallas Times Herald for 10 years, and its death was a kick in the gut the likes of which I cannot recall ever having experienced. Worked for a lot of them, never had one shot out from under me before. Had no idea how much it would hurt."

It's how some of us feel about losing Molly.

To honor her, let's not just wear pink ribbons. Let's vote. Let us in the news "bid-ness" defend our democracy from flag-draped scoundrels who want to crush civil liberties. Let's bring home the troops.

Let's also die with our boots on, dammit! Like Molly said, we are the deciders.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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