Fidel Castro & Molly Ivins

Not sure why some folks can compare liking Molly Ivins to liking Fidel Castro, but I decided to google the stinkin' geezer anyway. It's easy to find a list of actors or media personalities who have met with and said good things about Fidel Castro (Ted Turner, Robert Redford, Jack Lemmon, Ralph Nader, Jack Nicholson, Diane Sawyer, Jesse Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Dan Rather, Naomi Campbell, Chevy Chase, Kevin Costner, more I'm sure). While some of those names came as a surprise to me, I don't consider any of those people to be in control of US government policy - they're just rich and famous. Let's apply your logic to someone who has real power acting as an apologist for a facist strongman. Will you denounce president Bush for saying he knows Vladimir Putin is a good man with a good heart ("I know this because I looked him in the eye.")? Bush gave Putin the extra special personal treatment by inviting him into his Texas home and carting him around his pretend ranch in the pickup. Ex KGB agent Putin has rigged elections, rolled back democratic reforms, gassed a theater full of innocent people, assasinated political enemies, eliminated press freedom, and opposed many aspects of the US war on terrorism, such as pressuring hostile countries and helping us control nuclear proliferation. It's hard to to take Bush's words about worldwide "freedom on the march" seriously when you watch him gladhanding a scumbag like Pootie-Poot. Same goes for the Bush Family's nauseating rimjobs for the Saud Family, leaders of Egypt, etc, who fund terrorists and approve of whipping women in the face because they danced in public.

I like Molly Ivins because she stood up to the powerful. Conservative commentators stand up to the elite (at least when republicans are in power). There is a big difference in my mind - I just do not care about mouthy movie stars like you do, and I think their influence is overstated and only brought up to sterotype and to generate outrage. It's not hard to bash hollywood loonies becase they are an easy target, but it takes guts and patriotism to go after the powerful. Ivins was no Castro apologist. She used the power of ridicule to denounce and lampoon him as a crazy old man with a fragile ego who abused women and children, and who has jailed more journalists than any country in the world except China. She used ridicule against leaders who abuse their position of power. Any enemy of freedom of the press was an enemy of Molly's and that is why she is one of my heros.