Imagination and beer

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's 35th anniversary dinner sounds like it was hilarious. How could it not be, with Molly in attendance? As Editor and Publisher reported:

Ivins accepted her award with a funny, impassioned speech on the difficulty of fighting for press freedoms and civil liberties in the George W. Bush administration. "What you need to do is talk to a Texas liberal," she told the crowd. "We know what it's like to be outmanned and outgunned." Ivins spoke of her work on behalf of First Amendment causes, noting that for the last 15 years she has given one speech a month, for free, on behalf on free-speech issues. She doesn't give these speechs in places like New York or San Francisco, but in places without a lot of liberals. "You don't know what courage is," she said, until you sit in the basement of an Alabama Holiday Inn with "seven local heroes, led by a librarian, fixing to start a chapter of the ACLU."

Sharing the lessons of being an outgunned Texas liberal, Ivins said, "One of our rules is that things are not getting worse -- things were always this bad." But she acknowledged journalists are in a particularly tough spot right now. "If you're not scared," she said," you should be." But she encouraged the audience to continue fighting the good fight, and to continue having fun. "In Texas," she said, "we recommend imagination and beer."

Gotta love the guy (and this crack) but is Al Franken really candidate material?

Then he turned toward The New York Times table in the front of the room, where sat Judith Miller, best known these days for two things: her articles on weapons of mass destruction that didn't quite pan out and the possibility she will go to jail for not revealing sources in the Valerie Plame case. "Judy,"" Franken said, "maybe you can find some WMD in your cell." Silence. "OK, I shouldn't have told that joke."