What would Molly Ivins do???

[Are_grits_groceries]

As far as I could tell, Molly never bit her tongue

She saw potential in President Obama before many did.
<snip>
“You know,” she said after we met him. “That young man could be President some day.”

“What?” I said. “Are you crazy? Not in our lifetimes.” We both knew what I meant. After all, that young man was black. And she and I had both grown up white and liberal in a segregated Houston with “Colored” restrooms, “Whites Only” water fountains, and lily-white lunch counters.
<snip>
“That young man” was Barack Obama. The occasion was the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, where Obama had given the keynote address.
<snip>
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/texas-observer-molly-ivins-barack-obama.html

She had this to say during the primaries:

<snip>
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?
<snip>
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0120-30.htm

Then there is this:
<snip>
Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.
<snip>
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/opinion/02krugman.html

I do not believe for a second that she would give ANYBODY a completely free pass about this disaster. She would not back off President Obama and not criticize him if she felt it was warrented. I believe she is a model to follow.

She knew Big Oil, politics, the shenanigans, and the consequences of problems like this.

[madokie]

1. I miss Molly

One of the best, if not the best, at cutting through to the truth.

[Scuba]

2. Me too

[cilla4progress]

3. Three.

[Lerkfish]

4. speaking truth to power is an obligation

and not an elective choice when your own man is in power.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. Word. nt

[Lerkfish]

6. but will some ever understand that? I doubt it.

there's a thing we used to call in the news business -- "boosterism".
Where you covered the good news on a local sports team, a local chamber, what have you, and ignored the bad news, because it was more important to you to be a booster of the local than to do your job.

It used to be looked down upon in journalism. Not any more.

and that is a lot of what I see going on around here.