THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100022
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
TODAY'S QUIZ: What do the following have in common?
Crude oil.
Longhorn steers.
Ten-gallon hats.
Molly Ivins.
Answer: They're all products of Texas.
And therein lies a delicious irony. The Lone Star State, the same state that sent Phil Gramm to the Senate and spawned the political careers of George Bush and Ross Perot, also produced one of the most joyful and unrepentant liberals to ever chronicle the American political scene.
Conservatives take cover. Ivins is coming to Virginia.
The syndicated columnist of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, whose columns appear periodically in The Virginian-Pilot, will be in Norfolk on Thursday as the last speaker in the 1995-96 President's Lecture Series at Old Dominion University.
This is the woman who titled one of her books ``Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?'' But she can, and does, keep saying and writing things calculated to send conservatives' blood pressure soaring right off the scale. And those Texans keep letting her get away with it. In fact, they gave her this year's Headliner Award for the best column in Texas.
What's the deal here?
The secret, as any Texas barbecue chef will tell you, is in the sauce. It's Ivins' style, not her politics, that makes her irresistible. She's so sassy, so folksy, so jovial, so - well, so Texas.
``I've always thought that if I didn't write with a native Texas accent, I would have been hanged a long time ago,'' she drawled over the phone the other day.
Even so, doesn't she get a lot of hate mail?
``Oh, sure. I'm very proud of it,'' she said. ``My favorite letter that I ever got began, `Dear Miss Ivins, I have been reading you for 10 years and this is the first time I ever agreed with you.' And I wrote back: `Keep reading! It won't happen again!' ''
She started developing her thick skin at a tender age. Her first job in journalism was in the complaint department at the Houston Chronicle.
No one is safe from the Ivins cattle prod - not even her own profession. She is sympathetic to critics who say that modern political journalism is feeding public cynicism by concentrating on the horse-race aspect of politics - who's up, who's down - at the expense of issues.
``I totally agree with that,'' she said. ``We do a dreadful job. That's why a politician as experienced as Bob Dole could stand up there in New Hampshire and say, absolutely seriously, `Whoever would have thought that job insecurity and unemployment would be major issues?'
``Duh! After 20 years of stagnant wages? Hello?
``It was ludicrous. The New York Times did a magnificent series on the effects of downsizing - after Pat Buchanan raised the issue. I mean, how pathetic!''
There are still few journalists or politicians giving serious attention to the underlying causes of Americans' economic anxieties, Ivins believes.
``Buchanan has a lot of damn fool ideas,'' she said, ``like we should build a wall on the border with Mexico. Oh, good! That'll help.''
Still, she's willing to give Buchanan his due, saying: ``He's the only guy out there raising the only political issues there are, which are: Who's gettin' screwed and who's doing the screwing. His answers are silly, but at least he's asking the right questions.''
And let it be clear: Ivins' indictment of America's current crop of politicians is strictly nonpartisan.
``In that echo chamber inside the Beltway, they all managed to convince themselves as a result of the Republican sweep a year ago that the most important issue in the whole country was balancing the budget,'' she said. ``And as a result, they were paying no attention to anything else.
``Personally, I never knew anybody who cast their entire vote on balancing the budget. I think the Republicans swept in because the Democrats deserved to be swept out.''
Remember, she said, for two years before the GOP congressional sweep of 1994, ``the Democrats had a president and both houses for the first time in eons and they wouldn't even do campaign finance reform. I mean, come on. That's so old politics. Everybody is so sick of that kind of corruption, where the special interests get served and the people don't.
``So we threw them out, and in came the Republicans and made it even worse.''
But don't think for a moment that Ivins is sour on politics in general. On the contrary, she clearly loves the rough and tumble. Like most political writers, she's a political junkie.
So is she suffering from withdrawal now that Dole has the GOP nomination locked up, months before the convention?
``No, no, I think there are more good times ahead,'' she said with a throaty chuckle. ``Absolutely. I think our boy Perot is going to get in. Who knows? Buchanan might bolt the party. Maybe he and Perot will get married. I mean, think of the possibilities.
``And then we're going to have the really wonderful experience of watching many of the finest public relations people and spinners on Earth try and make Bob Dole warm and fuzzy for us. Don't you think that'll be fun?
``After his response to President Clinton's State of the Union address, you just had to think, `Somewhere in Transylvania there is an empty grave.' ''
Does that mean Ivins is ready to let Clinton off the hook? Not on your life.
``If Dole needs a charm implant, Clinton needs a spine transplant,'' she said. ``I'm probably one of the few people in the country that's been neither surprised nor disappointed by Clinton, but then I think I had more realistic expectations than most.
``Clinton is not a leader. He is a very, very gifted politician with precisely those qualities that you normally need in public office. He's a compromiser, he's a persuader, he's a conciliator and a consensus builder. But a strong leader he is not.
``And politicians generically are in such disrepute these days that the very qualities that make him good at it are themselves in disrepute. People are so sick of politicians, they just say, `Let's send somebody who doesn't know a damn thing about government up there to kick ass!' ''
Here's this Texas liberal's horseback prognosis of what ails the American body politic today:
``There's an awful lot of free-floating anger in the country, what the shrinks call displaced anger. The shrinks tell you it's just as common as dirt in families. The dad comes home, he's had a terrible day at work, the boss is on his case, so he clouts the oldest kid on the head. The oldest kid isn't big enough to hit his dad back, so he goes over and bonks his baby brother on the head.
``There's a lot of that in politics. People are smart enough to know they're gettin' screwed, but they don't know who to blame. So they settle on the usual suspects. They decide that people like welfare mothers and illegal Mexican workers and gay people are somehow responsible for the state of the economy, and run around clouting them on the head. Well, that's frankly not useful.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Molly Ivins
by CNB