Molly Ivins Biography

Political journalist Molly Ivins was a Texas liberal known for cracker-barrel commentary with biting humor reminiscent of Mark Twain. Raised in Houston, she was a graduate of Smith College (1966) and held a M.S. degree in journalism from the Columbia University School of Journalism. Ivins spent her journalism career amid Texas politics, with the exception of a stint (1976-82) working for the New York Times in their Albany and Denver bureaus. After leaving the Times she settled in Texas and ended up writing a column for Dallas’s Times-Herald. When that publication folded in 1991 she joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a columnist. After former Texas governor George W. Bush became the 43rd U.S. president, Ivins turned her attention to national politics. She became a familiar face on television news shows and ended her run at the Star-Telegram in 2001 to become a nationally syndicated columnist. From 1999 she battled breast cancer, having ups and downs until finally succumbing in early 2007. Collections of her columns include Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? (1992) and Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known (2005), and she published two books (with writer Lou Dubose) on President Bush, the look-out-for-this-guy exhortation Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (2000) and it’s I-told-you-so follow-up, Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America (2004).