I'm not exactly sure how to react to the death of Molly Ivins other than reading some of her writing last night to Nardo before nodding off to sleep.

With the passing of Ann Richards and now Molly Ivins, the rare Tough Texas Broad is all that more rare a bird.

I may not have agreed with everything she said over the years, although she was dead-on about George "Shrub" Bush being a piss-poor governor during his tenure here.

He had this to say about her publicly:

Molly Ivins was a Texas original. She was loved by her readers and by her many friends, particularly in Central Texas. I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase. She fought her illness with that same passion. Her quick wit and commitment to her beliefs will be missed. Laura and I send our condolences to Molly Ivins' family and friends.

All nice and proper, not a single expletive or off-the-cuff remark.

Doesn't suit Molly at all, either.

If you're going to talk about her, you need a drink in your hand and it had better be your fourth or fifth one that night. Plus, everybody still facing you when you say it needs to blush, not counting those that have turned away in shock and disbelief.

This parody is more to my liking... the God's honest, toothpick-in-mouth truth. Something from someone who really clears underbrush from a ranch would say, sober up, and be shocked he'd said it (but have to admit he meant every word).

Maybe Bush will say similar things to say about her privately, or maybe not. But the man really ought to put a thank you in there because you don't get to the national stage without having your rough edges knocked off at the local and state levels.

Let's see... drill sergeant... master-student Shaolin Monk training... rock tumbler... aha!

You could even say that Molly Ivins helped show Karl Rove how to shape George Bush, her mouth acting like a rock tumbler and her words like the grit smoothing and polishing the future president. Although, what exactly prepares a man for the deranged, senile antagonism of Helen Thomas?

Current Governor, "Goodhair" Rick Perry (Molly gave him that name) has crumbled to bits under that same withering scorn. Somehow, despite all odds and sanity, the voters decided to vote those bits and pieces back into office, and he turned around and told everyone he was only kidding about being tough on border enforcement and cracking down on illegal immigration.

You should have swallowed those pieces, Molly. Kinky Friedman would have handed you a beer to wash them down, too. Maybe even a cigar to get the taste of hair gel out of your mouth.

Yes, I didn't agree with a lot of what she said later on. But what she said, she said it well and with a lot of folksy charm to it.

I'd like to think that some of my own writing has been influenced by Molly's brand of gonzo with a Texas twang. I'd also like to think I can fly, the Houston Texans don't suck, and I can eat a whole cheesecake a day without exercising and still fit in the bathtub.

Heck, I was in her presence once and only once. It think it was during the Republican National Convention down here in Houston where she nailed Pat Buchanan to the wall:

"Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German," Ivins in September 1992, commenting on the one-time presidential hopeful's speech to the Republican National Convention.

"Tall, drunk, funny, and forbidable," I thought.

Or maybe it was some other time and some other place. I lost all my journals and notes from back then when moving from place to place, and my memory's gotten pretty jumbled up from spending most (if not all) of my 1997-2001 off-work hours with my mouth firmly wrapped around the spigot of a Cabo's margarita machine, only briefly coming up for air to clear out brainfreezes.... oh, and those awesome soft tacos and salads!

I do remember from back way back then asking Bush-41 something when he was doing an interview with Todd. It may have been "How long do you think Saddam will still be in power?" or like that.

I wish I could remember his response. It was unusual and not what I expected. But maybe James Baker was hiding behind a curtain, pegged me in the back of the neck with his blowgun, and dragged me to a cantina where I'd wake up with a half-empty bottle of tequila in my hand.

Maybe that's how I got introduced to Cabo's in the first place?

The biggest shame in this is the loss of Molly herself, but it's a bigger shame that being being eulogized so ineloquently by the teeming nutroots masses of Democratic Underground, DailyKos, TalkLeft, Huffington, and the other sites on the Internet that act as flypaper to the barely-evolved swarms of stinging, biting gnats and nuisances.

Same goes with some far-right sites today. Probably best if you take a holiday from reading the extremes of the Blogosphere for a spell and stick to Peanuts reruns or running those backups you keep putting off.

Cable companies and Baby Bells make getting to the Internet inexpensive, but it's the deranged masses they keep insisting on selling that access to that make it cheap.

I'm sure y'all can navigate through the chaff and flak out there and find the right and proper eulogies... certainly better ones than mine.

Maybe the only person who could tackle the assignment of eugolizing Molly... is Molly.

And I reckon she ain't getting all four bars of cell coverage right about now.

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