Hello, Odessa

Hello and thanks to those of you who followed my OA letter about Molly Ivins to this blog site. I hope you'll check in from time to time, respond to the posts or just email me to say hello. I've been spending a lot of time doing research for my book about the federal justice system, "Doo Process; Rare Trials." But I expect to resume posting to this blog several times each week from now on.

Best regards

Comments from original post are included here:


Hi John,
Nancy and I have missed your calm, reasoned editorials and comments. Seems like the background noise is getter shriller; not just in Odessa but elsewhere. Good to know you're still out there.
Darrell
Posted by: Darrell Wells


John, 
You are very much missed in Odessa, I am sure your mailbox will be filled with letters to that effect. The paper is just not as enjoyable as it was, people get bored when you dont have diverse opinions about things, you always gave people something to consider, chew over and see that there are many ways of seeing something..sure your polictical views sometimes made me say..grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, what the heck is wrong with the man. But you always printed the letters disagreeing with you as well as the ones that did. You are very missed. Sure wish you would come back. This paper needs you..
Sidney
Posted by: SidneyAdams


After you left, we still had Molly...(sigh). On the bright side, my students at UTPB seem to be demonstrating more political awareness. The Young Dems Club is up and running. Students are volunteering to escort pregnant women past the anti-choice crowd at Planned Parenthood's clinic in Midland. And the ditto-heads don't go unchallenged when they spout their drivel in class anymore. I'm enjoying my work more and more!
Posted by: Gary


With you and Molly both gone the OA is hardly worth reading. You are both sincerely missed. I have always thought the Odessa Chamber was a political forum for the Odessa Country Club and the Odessa American was it's Fox News. Oh well - that's life in Odessa.
Posted by: Barbara

Shameful Scene in Senate

So. No debate, let alone meaningful action, on whether to support or block the president's "surge" plan.

Instead we are seeing in the Senate the same stew of demagoguery and cowardice that produced the authorization to use force in Iraq...which produced the too-broke-to-fix quagmire we find ourselves in in Iraq.

Demagoguery: Republican senators scuttled debate with a resolution they believed would compel cowardly Democrats to support the surge by linking it to a "support the troops" promise not to cut funds for the war.

Cowardice: Democrats didn't disappoint the Republicans who figured they'd fold.

It was a replay of the tack that compelled cowardly Democrats to vote for the use-of-force resolution by linking it with post-911 patriotism.

The Democrats who voted for it did so because they feared Karl Rove would successfully accuse them of siding with the terrorists. And that, they feared, would cost them their jobs.

Cowardly Democrats can't say that, of course. Admitting cowardice is only marginally less offensive to voters than "siding with the terrorists." So Democrats who've been recanting their force-resolution vote in recent months instead say things like "I supported the war, but the president was incompetent in prosecuting the war" or "I believed the president when he told us the Iraqis had nukes." Nonsense.

Lots, maybe all, of those timid Democrats probably thought the war was a bad idea -- for the convincing reasons expressed by George W's father back in the early 1990s. And, even if Hussein had the weapons George W said he had, not a shred of evidence was put forward to suggest Hussein had any intention of attacking America.

Beyond that, most clear-thinking people see no real difference between "pre-emptive war" and "first-strike war of aggression."

It's sad what we're seeing in the Halls of Congress. Conniving, mindlessly partisan Republicans scheming to protect an incompetent, delusional president and spineless Democrats letting young Americans die as a result of deplorable policies that they have the power to stop. 

Me and Molly Ivins

Of the scores of conferences I sat through in more than three decades as a newspaper editor, only one remains stuck in my head all these years later.

It was memorable because Molly Ivins, the featured speaker, provided a rare glimpse of what  life might be like for the treasured few whose talent, inclinations and quirks inevitably forge careers that reward them simply for being who they are.

There she was. Bold. Profound. Funny. Outlandish. Irreverant. Funny. Profane. Brash. Funny.

She gets to do what she loves and what she's so good at, I remember thinking. She gets to make a living thinking out loud, and she doesn't have to pull any punches or flatter people she detests. What's better than that?

My only other similar glimpse of nirvana came in the post-game coverage after John Elway's Denver Bronchos won their second superbowl. I'm a native of Denver. The Bronchos have been my team since they came into the league.And there he was, maybe the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, basking in adoration from a stadium full of grateful fans on their feet chanting his name. What's better than that? 

I never got to play quarterback in the NFL. But a few years after seeing Molly Ivins at the conference, I got a taste of her lifestyle with a newspaper column of my own.

It wasn't informed by years of reporting Texas and national issues like Molly's was. It lacked her humor. And as editor of the paper I did have to pull my punches.

Even so, my column was inspired by libertarian impulses, like Molly's was. It was anti-authoritarian, in that it frequently jabbed the Bush Administration and other folks in power as did Molly's. Its libertarian take, like Molly's, was widely perceived as being "too liberal for Texas."

It was flattering from time to time to be teamed with Molly Ivins in the minds of readers who lambasted or praised the two of us as kindred spirits.

Fact is, she never knew I was alive. Never even spoke with her. But I sure do miss her. And it's hard to shake the feeling that life is somehow less interesting, less fun without her.

Give 'em hell in heaven, Molly! 

The Malicious Mischief President

The big difference between the president we've got and all the others I've observed or read about is this: the other presidents at least seemed to be trying to do a good job.

What we get from George W. Bush looks more like malicious mischief than good-faith governance.

If he isn't impeached for any of the scores of grievances that could be listed, what would some future president have to do to merit impeachment?

No doubt, part of the Bush legacy will be that he set the bar for impeachment so high no future president is likely to clear it. The only other thing he's likely to be remembered for is giving the country the worst foreign policy debacle in its history.