You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (Paperback)

~ (Author) "One Hundred Days..." (more)
Key Phrases: evil cowards, New York, Social Security, Mall of America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In this, her third volume, Molly Ivins (columnist, NPR commentator, and three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) sheds light on the "great clouds of obsfucation" that stymie attempts to clearly analyze President Clinton's job performance. Ivins stayed a Clinton supporter after most of her fellow liberals bailed--up until 1996, when Clinton signed the welfare "reform" bill. "My expectations of Democratic politicians exceed my expectations of Republicans by only the smallest of margins," Ivins states ruefully, "but real Democrats don't hurt children. Clinton did." Nevertheless, current Clinton bashing defies logic and she provides a levelheaded analysis of the wave of anti-Clinton sentiment by distinguishing between the usual brew of Republican and Democrat animosity and such phenomena as "the well-financed propaganda machine funded largely by Richard Mellon Scaife of Pittsburgh."

The title flushes out the core concern of the collection. One of the oldest sayings in politics, "You got to dance with them what brung you," points to the reality that special-interest money rules today's politics. For Ivins, the centerpiece of corruption is gold, and such inevitable consequences as the tax burden shifting from corporations to individuals; the widening gap between rich and poor. You've Got to Dance with Them What Brung You, inimitably bold and broad, attacks racism, homophobia, terrorism; offers a terse and dismally delightful excoriation of the "ineffable" Newt Gingrich; reports on political farces at both the state and national levels. It's full of incisive gems that offer insight on some of our national extremes (Timothy McVeigh's obsession with the bizarre and racist book, The Turner Diaries, replete with the bomb recipe that blew up the Murrah Federal Building).

Champion of commonsense and compassion; frank and boldly funny, Molly Ivins has been called by the L.A. Times "H.L. Mencken without the cruelty, Will Rogers with an agenda." Those of us who love Molly Ivins read her for her gutsy, lively, liberal values, and those of us who don't ... should. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Ivins (Nothin' but Good Times Ahead) is what a good newspaper columnist should be?opinionated, funny, preachy, sympathetic, temperamental, right, wrong and, above all, immensely entertaining. This latest sampling of magazine articles and newspaper columns?taken mostly from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram?finds the unabashed liberal rounding up the usual suspects for target practice. Everyone from Newt Gingrich to "Shiite Republicans" gets poked, but Ivins's crusade is political campaign financing, which she calls "The source of everything that is wrong with our political life." A first-rate muckraker, she is also a reporter who does her homework; arguably, few other journalists work the often dreary topic of campaign finance reform with as much style and insight. She must also be one of the bravest writers in Texas, consistently taking on that state's "blue-bellied, wall-eyed, lithium-deprived Texas lunatics" with her trademark mix of folksy irreverence and scathing commentary. This collection solidifies Ivins's ranking as among the cleverest humorists of the day.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (February 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679754873
• ISBN-13: 978-0679754879
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #376,798 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As funny as she is smart., June 20, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

Molly Ivins is smart, thoughtful, funny, and well armed with the facts. I wish I could carry her around with me so she could cite examples of the hypocrisy, mendacity, and corruptibility of our elected officials when all I can say is, "they're all a bunch of lying thieves." I wish I could carry her around with me because she has such a way with words and because, at the end of it all, she has hope for the future, which is terribly reassuring after she tells us about the present. Molly Ivins is the Susan Lucci of the Pulitzer. Award her already!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ivins is liberal -- sensible and factual, February 10, 2003

By	FreeAtLast (Newington, CT USA) - See all my reviews

Molly Ivins is simply a top-notch columnist who documents her opinions with facts that cannot be denied. So, her detractors resort to calling her "liberal" as though that word has the Magical Power to transform sense and reason and humor and documentation into a negative.

The far right, filled with paranoia and mistrust, needs to resort to name calling when they deal with this witty, tough, and very well-informed treasure. Why? She's got the goods on them. (She has been a thorn in Bush's side relentlessly cutting through his misdirection to reveal what he does. And, oh, how that annoys those who want to revive the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities -- that wonderful little gang that brought blacklisting and mud-slinging to the halls of congress.)

Ivins is a patriotic writer -- too in love with her country and its Constitution to sit by quietly while it gets dismantled in the name of "security" by those who use fear as their political cover, and too sharp to allow the politics of destruction to go unpunished.

Thanks to Molly Ivins, there is something to love about Texas after all!

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humor adds to her message without clouding essential truths, July 4, 2000

By	Patricia Lavins (Vero Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This collection of Molly Ivins news articles is a god-send for those of us who are not privileged to be able to read her column on a regular basis. This truth-seeker tells it like it is and the reader is left with the feeling that you have just shared an intimate cup of coffee with one of the most astute political observers of our time. My only regret when I closed the book is that my own writing skills are not on a par with this seasoned journalist. I look forward to more and more of her quality analysis and use of the language to demand our attention to the important issues of the day.