$2.25 I OPENI G THE EYES OF TEXAS FOR FIFTY TWO YEARS FEBRUARY 9, 2007 TheTexas Observer TRIBUTES TO MOLLY IVINS BY: Ronnie Dugger 6 Kaye Northcott 8 Bernard Rapoport 10 Carlton Carl 12 Gary Cartwright 13 Sissy Farenthold 15 Jim Hightower 16 Bud Shrake 17 Adam Clymer 18 Adam Hochschild. 19 Ben Sargent 20 Myra MacPherson 21 Dan Rather 22 Naomi Shihab Nye 24 Steven Fromholz 26 Dave Richards 27 Richard Aregood 29 Garrison Keillor 32 Mark Russell 33 Signe Wilkinson 33 Ellen Sweets 34 James K. Galbraith 36 Douglas Foster 37 Anthony Zurcher 39 Maya Angelou 40 Anne Lamott 41 Molly's Beloveds 44 Bill Moyers 47 Right: Molly and Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger in 2004. photo by Alan Pogue Texas Thanksgiving hen Molly Ivins parked her Mercury folk and how well it was serving big bidness, she could wrap "that would only go forward" in front her arms around her readers and escort them all the way of the offices of The Texas Observer through hell and back to explain what was being done to in 1970, she was young, tough, them and how to better stand up to make it right. And you tall, and brilliant, an incredible didn't feel browbeaten or lectured to. You felt invigorated, work in progress. Molly and Kaye empowered, and highly entertained. You knew there was hope Northcott inaugurated the second generation of Observer for change because Molly had you laughing at the ridiculous editors (with Greg Olds providing some transition). The world of politics. era of the Observer's founding fathers, whom LBJ feared You can't laugh if you don't see a little light around the edges. and derided as "the boys down at the Observer"—Dugger, Unlike most political humorists, Molly's humor wasn't snide or Morris, Brammer, Goodwyn, Sherrill—had given way closed or clever. It was open and generous. She only picked on to two women who had come of age in the '60s. Pairing the powerful. And there were no inside jokes. She brought the Molly Ivins with Texas politics was an inspired act. reader inside so we could laugh together at the foolishness and Molly found her voice at the Observer. She found it in beer greed of the many who have wielded (and continue to wield) joints and private clubs where the state's business was done power in this laboratory of bad government. And together, we after hours. Where she could go toe-to-toe with Bob Bullock could collaborate to make this a better world. and wake up the following morning and file her story. Like After half a dozen years of raising the ante for journalism in Samuel Clemens listening to riverboat pilots and deckhands Texas—helping us and others see our better and worse selves— running the Mississippi, she listened to the good old boys and Molly moved on to The New York Times, where she ended up corporate gargoyles running the state. Out of their voices, she as the paper's Rocky Mountain Bureau, covering the West. created her idiom. She used that idiom, that unique voice that But her heart remained with the Observer. She had found would become a brand, to expose the bloviating, bloated, and more than her voice here. She found what she described corrupt politicians and corporate bosses who shaped what as "the best deal in American journalism"—a place where a passed for public policy—the people Jim Hightower would reporter could do uncensored, unbridled reporting. Molly later describe as "the bullies, bankers, and bastards in charge." had filed more than 300 stories at the Times but proved too She reinvigorated the journalism for public good that had exuberant for the staid newspaper of record. She better-dealed defined Ronnie Dugger's "journal of free voices." At her center, them and went to the Dallas Times Herald, where she was Molly cared deeply about her fellow humans and how they promised the freedom to write what she wanted. She had were being treated by their gummint. it—until the Belo Corp. bought the Times Herald and shut it Now you can be all that and end up a character in a Billy down the day after the purchase, leaving the Dallas Morning Brammer novel. But the plain truth was—Molly could write News the only game in town. circles around everybody else. When she latched onto a story The shuttering of the scrappy Times Herald haunted that revealed how poorly our government was serving regular Molly—not because she was out of work, but because of what THE TEXAS OBSERVER I VOLUME 99, NO. 3 I A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954 Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger James K. Galbraith, Dagoberto The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519/ paid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk Executive Editor Jake Bernstein Gilb, Steven G. Kellman, James USPS 541300), entire contents copy- rates on request. Microfilm available Editor Barbara Belejack McWilliams, Char Miller, righted 132007, is published biweekly from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Managing Editor David Pasztor Debbie Nathan, Karen Olsson, except during January and August Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Associate Editor Dave Mann John Ross, Andrew Wheat when there is a 4 week break between Publisher Charlotte McCann issues (24 issues per year) by the Indexes The Texas Observer is indexed Associate Publisher Julia Austin Staff Photographers Texas Democracy Foundation, a 501(c)3 in Access: The Supplementary Index Circulation Manager Lara George Tucker Alan Pogue, Jana Birchum, non-profit foundation, 307 West 7th to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for Art Director/Webmaster Matt Omohundro Steve Satterwhite Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Investigative Reporter Eileen Welsome (512) 477-0746, Toll-Free (800) 939-6620 Observer Index. Poetry Editor Naomi Shihab Nye Contributing Artists Texas Democracy Foundation Board E-mail [email protected] Copy Editors Rusty Todd, Laurie Baker Sam Hurt, Kevin Kreneck, Lou Dubose, D'Ann Johnson, Jim POSTMASTER Send address changes to: The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th Staff Writer Forrest Wilder Michael Krone, Gary Oliver, Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, Gilberto World Wide Web DownHome page Blogger Matt Wright Doug Potter Ocaffas, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey www.texasobserver.org. Periodicals Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Administrative Assistant Stephanie Holmes Rips, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, Postage paid at Austin, TX and at addi- Editorial Interns Jun Wang, A.J. Bauer, Ronnie Dugger (Emeritus) tional mailing offices. Books & the Culture is i I ■ Editorial Advisory Board Clatuf.1 Arts Kelly Sharp funded in part by the City Dirimion David Anderson, Chandler Davidson, In Memoriam Subscriptions One year $32, two years of Austin through the Contributing Writers Dave Denison, Sissy Farenthold, Molly Ivins, 1944-2007 $59, three years $84. Full-time stu- Cultural Arts Division and Nate Blakeslee, Gabriela Bocagrande, Lawrence Goodwyn, Jim Hightower, Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001, dents $18 per year; add $13 per year by a grant from the Texas Robert Bryce, Michael Erard, Kaye Northcott, Susan Reid Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 for foreign subs. Back issues $3 pre- Commission on the Arts. FEBRUARY 9, 2007 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 it represented. She found a space on the op-ed page of the press. Molly romanticized those six years when her dateline Fort Worth Star-Telegram. But her profession was dying. The was penury, but recognized the economic reality of creating end of the two-newspaper town was the end of the daily quality journalism today. She was resolved to see the Observer competition for stories that motivated editors. Publishers, adequately funded and fully staffed. She knew that there advertisers, and accountants would be the defining forces are hundreds of critically important stories that aren't being in a profession that Molly knew was essential to a working reported in "the Great State" and that from the bottom of the democracy. journalistic food chain, a small, intrepid staff could compel the As newspapers foundered and independent journals boys in the big newsrooms to pay attention—by beating them disappeared, Molly became increasingly tenacious about the at what used to be their own game. survival of The Texas Observer as a journal of free voices. She Molly adored the poet John Berryman, whom she met became chair of the board of directors of the Texas Democracy when she was at the Minneapolis Tribune and whom she Foundation, the nonprofit owner of the Observer. She gave the quoted in the first editorial she published in these pages. Observer honoraria from her speeches and royalties from her So we borrow a phrase from Berryman's "Minnesota books. She was a tireless advocate, wining and dining potential Thanksgiving" and promise to use these pages to do Molly donors to keep the Observer afloat. Along with B. Rapoport, "not sufficient honour but such as we become able to devise Molly was our rainmaker. But her generosity of spirit far out of a decent or joyful conscience." outdistanced even her generosity of resources. Molly's indomitable spirit will live through these pages. It wasn't just because the Observer was her second home We'll use the one-word penultimate line of the last stanza of and the place where she earned her chops. It was because Berryman's "Minnesota Thanksgiving" to recall that spirit: she believed passionately in the power and necessity of a free Yippee! IN Molly when she was co-editor of the Observer. • photo by Alan Pogue One Thing About You by RONNIE DUGGER ou Dubose let me know, from his visits with humorists that holds up is to Will Rogers. Your achieve- her in January, that Molly was failing.