{"id":502,"date":"2007-02-02T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T15:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/02\/jim-wallis-remembering-molly-ivins.html"},"modified":"2007-02-02T15:09:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T15:09:00","slug":"jim-wallis-remembering-molly-ivins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/02\/jim-wallis-remembering-molly-ivins.html","title":{"rendered":"Jim Wallis: Remembering Molly Ivins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know how many of you ever read the columns or books written by Molly Ivins. She died this week, after a long bout with breast cancer. Molly was a feisty, irreverent, no-nonsense, characteristically confrontational, and highly intelligent force in American journalism. She was the quintessential populist \u2013 a defender of little people and an absolute scourge to their assailants among the rich and powerful. And being from Texas, she was the most insightful, hilarious, and audacious critic of our current president \u2013 fellow Texan George W. Bush \u2013 whom she labeled a \u201cshrub\u201d more than a bush. Religion wasn\u2019t much of an interest for Molly, but over the only breakfast talk we ever had together, several years ago, she told me that the only kind of religion she ever respected and might even consider is the kind she found in Sojourners. She loved how the biblical prophets would stick it to the powers that be \u2013 and, indeed, that is exactly what she spent her life doing. I really liked Molly Ivins and read her stuff as often as I could.<\/p>\n<p>E.J. Dionne wrote a great column today in <em>The Washington Post<\/em> titled \u201c<a title=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/02\/01\/AR2007020101496.html\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/02\/01\/AR2007020101496.html\">Molly Ivins\u2019s Joyful Outrage<\/a>.\u201d He said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>More than just about any other columnist I can think of, Molly was a genuine populist, to make proper reference to a word she couldn&#8217;t stand to see misused by charlatans. She believed in lifting up the underdog and hated it when the wealthy made excuses for injustice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And, along with her political passions, E.J. pointed out:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Joy was the key. Another thing she hated was anybody who didn&#8217;t think that fighting the good fight was a kick. She left us all with a charge a few years ago: &#8220;Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don&#8217;t forget to have fun doin&#8217; it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Her first book was titled, <em>Molly Ivins Can\u2019t Say That, Can She?<\/em> Well, she can, and she did, and we were all much better off for it. I for one will miss her wit and wisdom. And I didn\u2019t want to miss the opportunity, in her sad passing, of sharing some of the best tributes to her with all of you. Here\u2019s what <a title=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/02\/01\/washington\/01ivins.html?ref=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/02\/01\/washington\/01ivins.html?ref=obituaries\"><em>The New York Times<\/em><\/a> and <a title=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/31\/AR2007013101767.html\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/31\/AR2007013101767.html\"><em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> had to say. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/02\/01\/AR2007020101909_pf.html\">Maya Angelou <\/a>wrote a poignant appreciation, and the <a title=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/opinion\/chi-0702010135feb01,0,4012384.story?coll=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/opinion\/chi-0702010135feb01,0,4012384.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed\"><em>Chicago Tribune<\/em><\/a>, where her columns were printed, wrote in an editorial:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/opinion\/chi-0701050319jan05,0,2434942.story?coll=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/opinion\/chi-0701050319jan05,0,2434942.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed\">Her final column<\/a> appeared less than four weeks ago, on Jan. 5. Not a lot of mellowing: &#8220;The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck \u2013 so it&#8217;s up to us. You and me.&#8221; She promised that in every future column, she would write about the bane of her existence, the war in Iraq. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you didn\u2019t know Molly, it\u2019s not too late to go out and buy some of her books this weekend. I\u2019m sure she was never called a \u201cwoman of God,\u201d but I believe was the kind of woman that God really likes. I suspect she has already been asking the Lord some tough questions. That, she thought, was always the job of a good muckraking journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know how many of you ever read the columns or books written by Molly Ivins. She died this week, after a long bout with breast cancer. Molly was a feisty, irreverent, no-nonsense, characteristically confrontational, and highly intelligent force in American journalism. She was the quintessential populist \u2013 a defender of little people and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jim Wallis: Remembering Molly Ivins - God&#039;s Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/02\/jim-wallis-remembering-molly-ivins.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Wallis: Remembering Molly Ivins - God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don\u2019t know how many of you ever read the columns or books written by Molly Ivins. 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