Molly Ivins - Who let the dogs in?: incredible political animals I have known

Contents

The Reign of Ronald Reagan and Big
George

To my brother, Andy,
who makes me laugh more than
anyone I know. Viva Chateau Bubba.

Introduction

The editor of this book is Jonathan Karp, an alarmingly bright young man who appears to be about fourteen years old. He says he considers this my career retrospective.

Jonathan, I explained, that makes me feel slightly dead.

So here I sit with a smart kids selection of my best work, trying to figure out if it means anything. Do we have a Theme here? Are there Underlying Meanings? Refrains? Have I done anything for forty years except laugh at the perfectly improbable nincompoops who get themselves elected to public office?

I guess the most amazing refrain is that I still love politics, and I think it matters to every American in more ways than most of them ever guess. Also, I still think its funny. I consider that especially moving testimony, given that American politics is in a state of open corruption and intellectual rot.

I have been optimistic to the point of idiocy my whole life, a congenital defect. I assumed that as I grew older I would become an unnaturally cheerful old fart. Instead, I find both journalism and politics, the two fields I have cared about most, in a parlous state, and rather than coasting out on a long, merry burst of laughter, I am buckling up for what looks like a last hard stand against Mordor. Natch, Im sure well win. But we need a trumpet call in herefor attention, for help, to battle. Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country. Attention must be paid. Work needs to be done.

I may be an optimist, but I am also as frightened as I have been for this country since the Saturday Night Massacre under Richard Nixon, when I really thought he might call out the troops. In a different way, almost with our permission, I think were that close to losing all of it the Constitution, freedom, rule of law, even the dream of social and economic justice.

Did you know that in nineteenth-century America, politics was the entertainment that more than filled in for both television and movies? It was the equivalent of all the college and professional sports teams added togetherpeople listened to politicians giving loooong speeches as though... as though their lives depended on it. It was considered better than the zoo, better than the circus, better than the Friday Night Lights. And it wasnt about who won or lost, it was about how your life would turn out. Americans understood that; they knew their decisions mattered.

Where did it go, that understanding? When did politics become about themthosepeople in Washington or thosepeople in Austininstead of about us? We own it, we run it; we tell them what to do; its our country, not theirs. Theyre just the people we hired to drive the bus for a while. I hear people say, Im just not interested in politics. Oh, theyre all crooks anyway. Or TheresnothingIcando.

Because I have been writing about politics for forty years, I know where the cynicism comes from, and I would not presume to tell you it is misplaced. The system is so screwed up, if you think its not worth participating in, then give yourself credit for being alert. But not for being smart. How smart is it to throw away power? How smart is it to throw away the most magnificent political legacy any people has ever received? This is our birthright; we are the heirs; we get it just for being born here. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women!] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. More than two hundred years later, people all over the world are willing to die for a chance to live by those ideals. They died in South Africa, they died at Tiananmen Square, theyre dying today in Myanmar.

Dont throw that legacy away out of cynicism or boredom or inanition: Im just not interested in politics. Theres nothing I can do.

You have more political power than 99 percent of all the people who have ever lived on this planet. You can not only vote, you can register other people to vote, round up your friends, get out and do political education, talk to people, laugh with people, call the radio, write the paper, write your elected representative, use your e-mail list, put up signs, march, volunteer, and raise hell. All your life, no matter what else you dobutcher, baker, beggarman, thief/doctor, lawyer, Indian chiefyou have another job, another responsibility: You are a citizen. It is an obligation that requires attention and effort. And on top of that, you should make it into a hell of a lot of fun.

Having fun while fighting for freedom is, as you will see from this book, my major life cause. I see no reason why we should not laugh, and in fact I think we should insist on it.

So if all this is so gloriously funny, what went wrong? We won the cold war after fifty years, and suddenly our politics is sour, angry, ugly, full of people who cant discuss public affairs without getting all red in the face. The tendons stand out in their necks and their wattles start to shake like a turkey gobblers. Good grief.

Plenty of blame to go around for this revolting development, but those who deliberately corrupt our language for political advantage deserve some special ring in hell. One is Rush Limbaugh, a silly man. Another is Newt Gingrich, who has done much to poison the well of public debate: sick, twisted, pathetic, bizarre, traitor.

But I think far more damaging is the planned, corporately funded, interlocking web of propagandathe think tanks underwritten by corporate funders, the academic journals underwritten by corporate funders, and right-wing newspapers, radio, and television, not to mention low-life, bottom-feeding scandal-mongers, all funded by huge right-wing money. Hillary Clinton once called this a vast right-wing conspiracy, but it is not. It is all right there, out in the open; it has been growing before our eyes for more than thirty years for anyone to see.

Coming up in East Texas, I knew many racists and batshit John Birchers, as well as a few splendid Goldwater libertarians. For a long time, conservative was just another word for racist in Texas: some were more polite than others. I first ran across another form of conservatism in the Rocky Mountains in the late 1970s as the Sagebrush Rebellion or Wise Use movement, corporate-funded anti-environmentalism.

From the beginning, it was all about right-wing moneyH. L. Hunt, Coors, Mellon-Scaifethat old batty antiNew Deal money that was always behind the Republican right. They were against taxes on rich people and against taxes on business, didnt want limits on pollution, didnt want limits on exploiting natural resources. Greed is good, the market is Godsame old sorry claptrap we have heard since the era of the robber barons. Unleash capitalism and everything will be dandy, as though Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were actually saying anything new. Sheesh.