Would Molly Ivins Have Written about the Missing Comma?

She's dead at 62--an age that seems younger to me all the time. She should have lived out the current pres-O-dency. She deserved that. But can you think of a more galling time to die? The democrats are poised to win the White House in 2008, and already there are three "Howard Dean's Scream" moments in the press coverage. There's Obama's madrassa; there's Clinton's bad joke about her experience with evil and dangerous men; and now there's Biden's misleadingly transcribed remarks about Obama being the first mainstream African-American candidate. Articulate, clean, etc. (Hard to take Biden seriously; maybe he was channeling Neil Kinnock again.)

It's a sign of the hollowness of our politics that these isolated sub-rhetorical moments get so much attention. Molly Ivins (and for a time the blog-O-sphere) insisted that we focus our attention on more serious things, like class and cultural values. Well.

Will the new Congress make it harder for employers to bust unions? That's what any serious progressive should be talking about. Not whether Biden's a fool. Which of the candidates are especially friendly to organized labor, and why won't they headline that commitment? That's what the people who police their utterances should be probing for. Oh well.