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Molly Ivins, Columnist and Critic of Presidents, Dies (Update1)
By Stefan Whitney
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Molly Ivins, a blunt-spoken political columnist and humorist who stripped bare the pretensions of Texas politicians, saving her sharpest barbs for the president she dubbed ``Dubya'' and ``Shrub,'' died today. She was 62.
Ivins died at home in Austin, Texas, after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. She died ``surrounded by friends and family,'' Jake Bernstein, executive editor of the Texas Observer, said in a telephone interview. Ivins worked at the Observer from 1970 to 1976 and in recent years headed the board of the non- profit organization that owns the paper, the Texas Democracy Foundation.
Molly Ivins was known for her candid observations of Texas politics for more than 20 years. Her liberal Democratic voice found a national audience when first George H.W. Bush and then Texas Governor George W. Bush became president of the U.S.
``Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention,'' Ivins wrote in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Ivins is credited with coining Bush's nickname ``Dubya,'' based on the Texas pronunciation of his middle initial, and ``Shrub,'' a play on his last name. While she turned her invective on Democrats at times, she made no attempt to hide her disdain for conservatives, and in her final months, for the war in Iraq.
`Old-Fashioned' Campaign
``This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old- fashioned newspaper campaign,'' she wrote on Jan. 7. ``Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it.''
Born in Monterey, California, on Aug. 30, 1944, and raised in Houston since she was 3, Ivins was a graduate of Smith College and the Columbia University School of Journalism, where she received a master's degree. She also studied for a year at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.
Ivins began her career as a journalist at the Houston Chronicle as a summer intern during college. She later worked for the New York Times, the Dallas Times-Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among other newspapers. Since 2001, her weekly syndicated column appeared in more than 400 newspapers nationwide.
``People knew her mostly as this Texas voice, but behind the voice was a woman who was as comfortable in a Paris salon as a beer joint in Houston,'' said Lou Dubose, a fellow Texas journalist with whom Ivins co-wrote ``Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush,'' and ``Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America.''
A Quick Study
Dubose described Ivins as a ``quick study'' who was conversant in French, well-versed in the world outside Texas and dedicated to her work until her last days. Ivins and Dubose were working on a third book together, on post-Sept. 11 America.
Ivins also was the author of the best-seller, ``Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known''; ``Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?''; ``Nothin' But Good Times Ahead''; and ``You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You.''
Ivins's joy and despair was politics, particularly the unique breed known as Texas politics. One politician she came to know well was George W. Bush, whom she claimed to have met when they were both in high school. She once described the president as ``frozen like a rabbit'' on how to conduct the war. In her Creators Syndicate column for Jan. 7, she said: ``The president of the United States does not have the sense that God gave a duck.''
Went Too Far
Ivins sometimes went too far for her own editors. She left the Times in 1982 following a six-year stint after describing a chicken-plucking festival as a ``gang pluck'' and a man's ample waist as ``a beer gut that belongs in the Smithsonian.''
Ivins had struggled against three recurrences of breast cancer since 1999. She was hospitalized most recently on Jan. 26, then sent home on Jan. 29. Her brother, Andy Ivins, told Editor & Publisher that the cancer had spread throughout her body.
``I'd hoped to become a better person from confronting my own mortality, but it hasn't happened,'' she told Editor & Publisher last October.
Breast cancer, which also claimed her good friend, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, slowed her output but didn't blunt her spirit.
``We are the people who run this country,'' she wrote on Jan. 11. ``We are the deciders.''
It was her last column.
By Stefan Whitney
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Molly Ivins, a blunt-spoken political columnist and humorist who stripped bare the pretensions of Texas politicians, saving her sharpest barbs for the president she dubbed ``Dubya'' and ``Shrub,'' died today. She was 62.
Ivins died at home in Austin, Texas, after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. She died ``surrounded by friends and family,'' Jake Bernstein, executive editor of the Texas Observer, said in a telephone interview. Ivins worked at the Observer from 1970 to 1976 and in recent years headed the board of the non- profit organization that owns the paper, the Texas Democracy Foundation.
Molly Ivins was known for her candid observations of Texas politics for more than 20 years. Her liberal Democratic voice found a national audience when first George H.W. Bush and then Texas Governor George W. Bush became president of the U.S.
``Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention,'' Ivins wrote in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Ivins is credited with coining Bush's nickname ``Dubya,'' based on the Texas pronunciation of his middle initial, and ``Shrub,'' a play on his last name. While she turned her invective on Democrats at times, she made no attempt to hide her disdain for conservatives, and in her final months, for the war in Iraq.
`Old-Fashioned' Campaign
``This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old- fashioned newspaper campaign,'' she wrote on Jan. 7. ``Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it.''
Born in Monterey, California, on Aug. 30, 1944, and raised in Houston since she was 3, Ivins was a graduate of Smith College and the Columbia University School of Journalism, where she received a master's degree. She also studied for a year at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.
Ivins began her career as a journalist at the Houston Chronicle as a summer intern during college. She later worked for the New York Times, the Dallas Times-Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among other newspapers. Since 2001, her weekly syndicated column appeared in more than 400 newspapers nationwide.
``People knew her mostly as this Texas voice, but behind the voice was a woman who was as comfortable in a Paris salon as a beer joint in Houston,'' said Lou Dubose, a fellow Texas journalist with whom Ivins co-wrote ``Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush,'' and ``Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America.''
A Quick Study
Dubose described Ivins as a ``quick study'' who was conversant in French, well-versed in the world outside Texas and dedicated to her work until her last days. Ivins and Dubose were working on a third book together, on post-Sept. 11 America.
Ivins also was the author of the best-seller, ``Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known''; ``Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?''; ``Nothin' But Good Times Ahead''; and ``You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You.''
Ivins's joy and despair was politics, particularly the unique breed known as Texas politics. One politician she came to know well was George W. Bush, whom she claimed to have met when they were both in high school. She once described the president as ``frozen like a rabbit'' on how to conduct the war. In her Creators Syndicate column for Jan. 7, she said: ``The president of the United States does not have the sense that God gave a duck.''
Went Too Far
Ivins sometimes went too far for her own editors. She left the Times in 1982 following a six-year stint after describing a chicken-plucking festival as a ``gang pluck'' and a man's ample waist as ``a beer gut that belongs in the Smithsonian.''
Ivins had struggled against three recurrences of breast cancer since 1999. She was hospitalized most recently on Jan. 26, then sent home on Jan. 29. Her brother, Andy Ivins, told Editor & Publisher that the cancer had spread throughout her body.
``I'd hoped to become a better person from confronting my own mortality, but it hasn't happened,'' she told Editor & Publisher last October.
Breast cancer, which also claimed her good friend, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, slowed her output but didn't blunt her spirit.
``We are the people who run this country,'' she wrote on Jan. 11. ``We are the deciders.''
It was her last column.
