Molly Ivins died today in Texas. She was 62*:

What’s there not to like about a columnist who’d once written, “I’m not anti-gun; I’m pro-knife.” Molly’s point was, typically, half serious, tongue in cheek. If you use a gun, you don’t need to be in shape as you would if you had to kill someone running with a knife. Using knives, she said, actually would promote physical fitness….

A liberal’s liberal, Molly was genuinely home-spun and humble, a genuine product of the Lone Star state. She stood in stark contrast to the faux cowboy currently taking up space and oxygen in the Oval Office, a Connecticut Yankee desperately running away from his Ivy League upbringing and education and, in the process, giving hubris and arrogance an even worse name. Molly not only never ran away from her liberal roots in the one place where liberalism is perhaps the least welcome, she embraced it and let her freak flag fly high and proud.

H/t to JP for the correction on Molly’s age.

Exhuming McCarthy: Pres. Bush’s deliberate use of the term “Democrat Party” in his State of the Union speech this month has put this too-cleverly couched linguistic smear back in the spotlight.

Republican politicans use this mangled syntax to express solidarity with their toothless, knuckledragging base. They don’t appear to care that, to independent voters and Democrats listening in, it makes them sound like the flaming assholes they are.

The origin of the Democrat smear is both surprising and not the least shocking. The man who first popularized it was Sen. Joe McCarthy — whose witch hunt against commies in the 1950s was nearly as destructive to the Republican Party then as George Bush’s needless war in Iraq is now:

[The] term became controversial as far back as the 1950s. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) famously used it to deride Democrats during his hearings investigating whether Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. During the 1956 Republican convention, the usage was so common that it prompted the New York Times to report that dropping the “-ic” had become official party policy.

“‘Democratic’ as an adjective is not descriptive of the party as it exists today,” GOP spokesman L. Richard Guylay explained in that report, referring to allegations of vote-fixing by the Democratic Party’s political machine in large cities. “I can’t consider the party of the Pendergasts or Tammany Hall as a democratic party.”

In 1957, writing about the phenomenon in American Speech, the quarterly journal of the American Dialect Society, scholar Ignace Feuerlicht wrote: “It will be interesting to see whether ‘Democrat Party’ will stay with us or go out of existence again or be revived and revitalized at intervals just before successive national elections.”

Republican presidents ramp up their misuse of “Democcrat” in election years — even St. Ronnie did it:

President Reagan used it more in 1984, the year of his reelection campaign, than at any other time in his presidency. In the case of President Bush, the term shows up in his remarks more in 2004 and 2006 — both election years — than during the rest of his time in office.

In fact, Bush’s usage of the term increased dramatically last year; according to the American Presidency Project, based at UC Santa Barbara, the president was recorded using the term 22 times in 2006 — more than in the previous five years of his presidency combined.

Misusing the noun Democrat as an adjective is just one of dozens of deceptive verbal tricks Republicans used to gain power. In 1994, they finally exorcised the 40-year-old specter of McCarthyism and gained control of Congress. In 2000, they took the White House and, from there, the Supreme Court.

In grabbing power, however, the Republicans revealed their true nature. With the government under their control, rather than create the conservative utopia they had promised voters, they lied, cheated, took bribes, were fiscally and morally irresponsible and abusive of democratic principles as well as sacred Constitutional principles.

Now, with the hollowness of the so-called conservative ideology revealed for all to see, it’s hard to imagine how even the cleverest linguisitc trickery can ever fool the public again.

All we know for certain is that they will try.

We can’t let January 2007 pass without noting that this is the second anniversary of publication for Pensito Review.

In the two years we have been publishing, the site has logged over 5 million page views, according to Webalizer software on our servers.

Thanks to all of you.

Appalling pol: It’s a field crowded with celebrity creeps and stellar liars, brazen braggarts and darlings of deceit, but when former Tennessee state Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland, enters the lobbying biz next year, he should slip right to the top of the heap on an impressively slick slime trail. Miller certainly has what it takes to boldly go from the legislative branch to the furtive world of lobbying where one is rewarded not so much by what one accomplishes as by what one gets away with.

Let’s look at some of the qualities that will make Miller the kind of rookie lobbyist that Jack Abramoff would be proud to mentor:

CHUTZPAH WITHOUT IRONY:Miller, who sponsored Tennessee’s successful constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, recently suggested that the state’s largest gay rights advocacy organization should consider hiring him as a lobbyist.

“I suppose he thinks helping pass discriminatory bills would make him an effective advocate for the gay, lesbian and transgender community,” said Chris Sanders, president of the Tennessee Equality Project. He said Tennessee Equality Project members view Mr. Miller with a “mixture of derision and hostility” and noted his proposal “is certainly not one that we’re going to follow up on.”

Voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment, directed at “solemnizing the relationship of one man and one woman,” in November despite the opposition of the Tennessee Equality Project and other groups.

SHOTGUN MARKETING:Apparently last week Miller blanketed Tennessee with letters soliciting lobbying business. In it he noted that his his mandatory one-year waiting period ends in November, and included that he had served 12 years in the General Assembly and had been Senate Republican Caucus chairman.

“I have worked closely with and become dear friends with many holding office and those who keep the wheels turning behind the scenes,” wrote Miller.

GOOD DANCER: Miller has so far managed to remain at large while an ethics investigation prosaically called Operation Tennessee Waltz brought about the arrests of several current and former state lawmakers. Because of that investigation, Miler resigned his caucus post last year during a special session on ethics prompted by the probe.

Miller has acknowledged accepting $1,000 from Chattanooga lobbyist Charles Love during the Tennessee Waltz probe but has said the money was a campaign contribution. Last year, at least two former Miller aides were called before a federal grand jury to provide testimony.

SHAMELESS HYPOCRISY: Miller sponsored the effort to put the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment on the November 2006 ballot. Only three days after lawmakers sent the marriage ban to voters, then-Sen. Miller’s wife filed for divorceon Feb. 25, 2005. No irreconcilable diffs here, though, Miller’s wife charged her husband had engaged in “inappropriate marital conduct” with a legislative employee later identified in account as a Miller aide. The Millers divorced last year.

“The hypocrisy was troubling,” Sanders said of Miller.

KNOWS THE OUTER LIMITS OF THE RULES:In his lobbying solicitation letter, Miller was careful to note that while state ethical guidelines prevent him from lobbying until November, “I am more than happy to offer you any advice you may need regarding the legislative process, potentially applicable rules of law and procedure, steps utilized in making policy decisions, or simply to be a go-to person on a particular issue.”

Tennessee Ethics Commission attorney Ann Turner said that so long as Miller does not communicate with former colleagues or state officials, he can act as a “consultant.”

“The definition of lobbying in the statute says communicating with a state legislative or executive official for the purpose of influencing,” Turner said.

Jeff Miller is going to make a heckuva lobb, er, consultant.