Must-Reads: The Late, Great Molly Ivins on Rick Perry

As I wrote in a earlier post, I am a true Molly Ivins fan.  I loved her humor and frank assessments of Republicans from Texas.   I ran across this article on Mother Jones and felt compelled to share it.

Mother Jones

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry embarks on hisObama-bashing, evangelical-courting, tea party-outdoing campaign for the presidency, we miss Molly Ivins more than ever.

The late and celebrated liberal columnist was known as a writer of sparkling political commentary infused with a trenchant wit and copious shots of zero-bullshit humor. She was the consummate Texan, a ferocious populist critic of the American right wing, and a sorely missed Mother Jones contributor. Here’s the C-SPAN footage of Ivins speaking at a Mother Jones fundraising event in 1992:

Ivins also had a special place in her heart for delivering blistering, bold critiques of Perry’s track record as a governor, a poor thinker, and an even worse obfuscator. She was, after all, the writer who bestowed upon Perry the nicknames “The Coiffure” and “Governor Goodhair.”

Here are a few highlights of Ivins tearing apart Perry’s stances on the death penalty, creationism, and taking dirty money from Enron.

• “Shrub Flubs His Dub“—The Nation, June 18, 2001

In this Nation article from the advent of the Bush years, Molly Ivins makes one of her first observations of just how damn good Rick Perry’s hairdo is:

Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames—it’s not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House committee says, “Goodhair is much more engaged as governor than Bush was.” As the refrain of the country song goes, “O Please, Dear God, Not Another One.”

• “Molly Ivins August 6“—Creators Syndicate, 2002

During the “grand old slugfest” between incumbent Perry and the Democratic challenger, Tony Sanchez, Ivins highlighted Perry’s misleading smear campaign against his opponent, as well as his eyebrow-raising deployment of the word “coincidental”:

This, in turn, brings up the interesting role of coincidence in the life of Gov. Goodhair. Last summer, the Guv appointed an Enron executive to the state’s Public Utilities Commission and, the next day, Perry got a check for $25,000 from Ken Lay. He explained this, to everyone’s satisfaction, as being “totally coincidental.”

• “The Not-So-Great Texas Gubernatorial Debate“—Creators Syndicate, 2006

When the next gubernatorial election cycle came around in Texas, Ivins had even more to say and write about Perry’s inadequacies. In her crosshairs this time: the faux-swagger that characterized his debating style:

The Coiffure was in his usual form. As one opponent after another attacked his record, Gov. Rick Perry stood there proudly behind that 35 percent voter support he has so richly earned and simply disagreed. The Coiffure seemed to consider blanket denials a fully sufficient and adequate response.

Continue reading here…

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• Quote Of The Day About Rick Perry (lezgetreal.com)
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