Many of us proud liberals were saddened to learn about the death of Molly Ivins.
But not so on the right. The hateful rhetoric that seems all too common at Right-Wing web sites and forums was clearly apparent.
My good friend skippy writes:
we'll be banging some pots and pans in your honor, molly. rest in peace.
slightly-related but disgusting tangent: oh those hate-filled liberals in the blogosphere. why can't they learn how to be civil, like the conservatives. here's just a few of comments, presumably left by the well-mannered and gracious conservatives, found on the message board at msnbc's piece on molly:i'm glad she is dead. that "thing" did nothing but spew the same old worn out left wing slogans.the world is now a better place. oh when will cancer take care of hillary?!?!
a sad case -- she couldn't help being ugly and stupid, but she could have kept her mouth shut and her fingers off the keyboard. good riddance.all that liberal anger and rage against those not like her neocommunist self decayed molly from the inside out. hate kills.
you see molly, when you are so full of hate, the cheap way you attacked the president, no wonder you got cancer. the world is a better place without this vile witch!sorry that she died of cancer, but i'd have to make the observation that there is now one less whining, bleating liberal.
Molly Ivins has died at age 62 of that horrible beast known as cancer.
It's hard for me to know what to say about this. It's like finding out that Ann Coulter or Maureen Dowd have died. I can't quite think of what exactly I should say.
I always liked her Texas attitude--I am a fellow Texan after all--and I tend to like ballsy women. Even if they are faux-liberals like Molly.
It's hard to think of any major political commentator of the last few decades who's been more shallow and spiteful, except maybe Michael Savage or Paul Krugman.
. . .So I guess I'll just say:
Go with God, Molly.
TBogg adds:
This is fine example of Passive-Aggressive Christian Goodness that allows you to say something uncharitable about a person as long as you follow it with a sympathetic blessing at the end.
For example:"She lets her kids run wild while she sleeps with any Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along ever since her husband left her...bless her heart."
In Dean's case he manages to somehow associate Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman, and Maureen Dowd with spittle-flecked sub-human freak shows like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage.
This level of sheer hate, of ad hominen attack, is a staple on the right. Coulter, Limbaugh, even so-called MSM pundits like Dick Morris, all participate in character assassination almost as a sport.
Criticize policies and petitions, but rejoice in someone's death from cancer?
My friend Jane Hamsher from Firedoglake recently had this attack from a D level winger:
Jane Hamster @Firedoglake is peeved she's taken seconds when put in a line with Kos of Kos Daily.
That's par for the course since Jane's been in a perpetual state of peeve since she caught a dose of BDS and it metastisized into the implants.
Not knowing, of course, that she had been recently diagnosed with her 3rd bout with Breast cancer. He tried to hide his ugly deed with this:
I have, therefore, retracted that jibe, but left it visible at the same time, as a reminder that we all make unwarranted assumptions.
Yeah, right.
This kind of hateful rhetoric and ad hominem attack has become a staple of the Right. From Coulter, Limbaugh, even so-called MSM pundits like Dick Morris, comes a barrage of vile attacks against people who just disagree.
Argue the point, the politics, the position, but to sing with joy when someone with whom you disagree dies? That kind of bile should be reserved for the truly evil, the tyrants and despots. But not the loyal opposition.
I just can't remember this kind of vitriol from any mainstream figures on the Left. But I'm pretty sure some commentors will point some examples out to me. But I guarantee they will pale in comparison to the hate shown toward Molly.
Bastards.
And from commenter Rheinhart at TBogg:
This is a new video I just posted to Youtube of Molly Ivins' address to the "Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy Tour", hosted by Jim Hightower, in Austin TX on March 23, 2002.