Molly Ivins: No, I was quite startled. The Sarasota Herald pointed it out. But I'm making an appearance for the ACLU, so it's a natural fit and I'll be talking about John Ashcroft, among other favorites.
DB: Sarasota is, of course, Katherine Harris' home turf [Florida Secretary of State during the 2000 presidential election and now U.S. Congresswoman from Florida's 13th District]. What's your take on Katherine Harris?
Ivins: Not just Katherine Harris, my father, Jim Ivins, was from Sarasota. It's not so much Katherine Harris that bothers me, but it seems like the state government has all but announced again that they are going to cheat. They tried again with the felon list. Jeb had a list of 47,000, but the Miami Herald reported that over 2,000 people on that list had already had their right to vote restored through a clemency process. And so that list was withdrawn.
DB: We've all been conditioned to refrain from using the word "conspiracy" or run the risk of sounding like fringe lunatics. But what IS going on in Florida? What would you call it?
Ivins: I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I do believe that there is such a thing as outrageous chutzpah. The idea that they would try this again, after disgracing themselves in 2000. It's as if they wouldn't leave any doubt that they are willing to cheat. At minimum, I think you need a paper trail with the electronic voting machines. When voting rights groups asked for an audit of the 2002 gubernatorial election, the records were supposedly gone. Oops. Fitting the machines to provide a paper trail on each ballot is not only not impossible, it's not even difficult.
DB: In the introduction to Who Let the Dogs In? you talk about how you asked yourself if there were any Underlying Meanings or Themes to the book. As I was reading it — perhaps because I was keeping that in mind — I did notice some points of emphasis that kept coming up. The corruption of politics by big money is an obvious one. …
Ivins: Exactly.
DB: … Fun is another. It's important to you, in part, you say, because you are a progressive journalist in a state that is solidly right wing—
Ivins: That's right. If we didn't laugh, we'd go insane.
DB: … Another thing I noticed was the amount of attention you pay to language — and this is what I wanted to get your response on. It ranges from mild amusement with the Bushes' dyslexia to more serious concerns: like the way in which language can be used dishonestly in politics. Where do you draw the line? Is it merely a matter of degree — of how vituperative someone is — or is it more a matter, as you seem to suggest in the Limbaugh chapter, that it's also a matter of the target of the language. That it's one thing to speak bile to power, it's another thing to speak it to the powerless?
Ivins: Exactly. Satire, that comes with different twists. There's also some information in the book about the list of words Newt Gingrich uses. The GOP issued a list of the words that Republican candidates were supposed to use to describe Democratic opponents: "sick," "pathetic," "traitor," "bizarre." I found that really disturbing, that any party as a matter of course would resort to words like that. Immediately you've taken politics down to a depth. If those are the words that Newt advises every Republican candidate to use to describe his opponent, then what do you use to run against someone who is really despicable? What do you use? It's a cheapening of the language.
It's ugly. And unnecessary. I don't think most people that run for office are sick, twisted, perverted traitors. You may disagree with them on Medicare, but does that mean that you have to resort to this kind of language? It really disturbs me.
DB: One place this struck me particularly was in your comment that you were uncomfortable with the term "Culture War" because it applied the word "war" to politics — something you see as extremely dangerous. It seemed like your discomfort with the term went beyond semantics, though. Where do you stand on the whole culture war thing?
Ivins: I'm a populist, I believe a lot of this is pure distraction — let's get a lot of hot button issues that get people distracted. Gay issues. Gay marriage. Race issues. None of this has anything to do with how government runs your life. The fact that about 6 million people lost the right to get time-and-a-half for overtime instead of straight comp time means much more to people's lives than all this bizarre stuff about who's the best Christian. It's not that I think Christianity is unimportant, it's not, but I think it's silly to focus on it in this way at the expense of these other issues.
