By Lynnell Mickelsen

The fact that so many people are writing and mourning Molly Ivins is a tribute to a life well-lived, well-fought and of course, well-written.

One thing that made her such a good writer----better and funnier than Maureen Dowd'"was that she had a great wit AND she actually believed in stuff.

Cynicism about people in power is fine. But relentless cynicism is the easy way out. Molly was never one of the Kewl Kids. Didn't belong to the Beltway crowd. Didn't spend a whole lot of time being hipper than thou. And she honestly loved people. She knew how to rip people a new one without ever losing her deep affection for humanity.

And can I just brag a bit? We Lefties had Molly Ivins. Meanwhile, the Righties have''.Anna Coulter, Michelle Malkin and more locally, Katherine Kersten. I mean, which one of these four women inspires you? And which one looked like she was havng the most fun? And who was the most fun to read?

She described herself as a "left-wing, aging Bohemian journalist who never made a shrewd career move, never dressed for success, never got married and isn't even a lesbian, which at least would be interesting."

An excerpt from New York Times obit . "In 1976, her writing, which she said was often fueled by "truly impressive amounts of beer," landed her a job at The New York Times. She cut an unusual figure in The Times newsroom, wearing blue jeans, going barefoot and bringing in her dog, whose name was an expletive.

"While she drew important writing assignments, like covering the Son of Sam killings and Elvis Presley's death, she sensed she did not fit in and complained that Times editors drained the life from her prose. "Naturally, I was miserable, at five times my previous salary," she later wrote. "The New York Times is a great newspaper: it is also No Fun."

As she later told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram folks " she would write about something that "squawked like a $2 fiddle" only to have a Times editor rewrite it to say "as an inexpensive instrument." Ms Ivins said she would mention a "beer belly" and The Times would substitute "a protuberant abdomen."

Back to the New York Times obit. "She quit The Times in 1982 after The Dallas Times Herald offered to make her a columnist. She took the job even though she loathed Dallas, once describing it as the kind of town "that would have rooted for Goliath to beat David."

"But the newspaper, she said, promised to let her write whatever she wanted. When she declared of a congressman, "If his I.Q. slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day," many readers were appalled, and several advertisers boycotted the paper. In her defense, her editors rented billboards that read: "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" The slogan became the title of the first of her six books."

Lynnell weighing in again. The "water him twice a day" quote is one of my favorites. I also loved her famous comment that Pat Buchanan's speech to the 1992 convention sounded "so much better in the original German."

Molly grew up in a culture that defined success for women as being thin, glamorous, appropriately deferential to authority, married and with children. She worked in a journalism culture where there is no higher definition of success than to write for the New York Times (which requires an equal amount deference to their rules and their world view.

She landed a job at the NYT at age 32 and quit six years later at age 38 because the place was no fun. I have a couple of pals at the NYT and I can tell you on good authority that it's a no-fun, soul-sucking place for plenty of other people too. But few people quit.

Molly said in one of her books that the way you end up swimming against the tide and being a liberal in Texas is that once you figure out that people on top are lying about race, you realize they're lying about almost everything else too.

Anyhow, I'm hoping that a whole lot of young conservatives have a similar epiphany, i.e. once they figure out that the people in power lied to them about the war, they realize that they're lying about almost everything else too.

I know. I know. In my dreams. But we can hope, huh? Meanwhile, here's one more final great quote from Molly. She was one of a kind.

This is one of my favorite quotes from the many tributes pouring in. This is from John Nichols piece in The Nation.

" She told crowds even when she was battling cancer and Karl Rove, that they should relish the lucky break of their consciences and their conflicts. Speaking truth to power is the best job in any democracy, she explained.

It took her to towns across this great yet battered land to say: 'So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.'"