by Matt Barr

Lead, follow, or write angry columns without paragraph breaks

Molly Ivins, tut-tutting Sen. Clinton:

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....

The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax.

Empashis in original. Without arguing over what if anything these non-sourced statistics mean, taking the argument on Ivins' terms, is this a failure of leadership she's describing? Going so drastically against what everyone so obviously wants done isn't a failure of political courage, it's an excess of it. Right?

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