Two Tough Liberals I Love Today

Women seem to have the market cornered these days on tough liberal voices in the media and I am so grateful. While I take nothing away from Ed Schultz or Mike Malloy, few people can take apart a conservative’s argument and hand it back like so much origami like Air America’s Randi Rhodes or The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel – and that’s not even who has me all hot and bothered today.

Check out the wonderful Molly Ivins today, in a column called I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Ivins doesn’t go after Hillary as directly as the title would suggest, so much as she bashes people within our party without the guts to meet the GOP head-on and stop the centrist, Republican-lite cowardice.

An excerpt:

"Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

"The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. "

She goes on to point out that all the public opinion polls support a liberal stance on issues like the Iraq war, taxes and health care, but that centrist Democrats are too dumb and gutless to pay attention to that.

I also pay homage today to the the woman I consider the most honest, erudite voice on Air America: Rachel Maddow. I listened to her show this morning on the way to work and caught her right when she was skewering MSNBC for their overwhelmingly right-wing take on the surfacing of the latest Osama tape. Maddow points out that, whether it’s Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson or Joe Scarborough, they decided to make the issue how much bin Laden allegedly sounds like a liberal, versus why he’s still out there podcasting after all the money we’ve spent and all the lives we’ve lost (and cost) in the “war on terror.”

Maddow blasts MSNBC while, at the same time, noting that she is a paid commentator on that network -- and not seeming to care that her honesty and integrity may cause that contract to suddenly disappear. I love it.

Kudos to Rachel Maddow. You can get today’s podcast of her show here.