Rating: 
Summary: Political Insights with Wit and Texas Charm
Review: Whenever I see a Molly Ivans piece on the op-ed page of my morning paper, a warm feeling of anticipation comes over me. So when I came across this collection of her essays at an airport ``bookstore'' before a long trip home, plunking down the $12 was a no-brainer. I wasn't disappointed.The pieces in this book are full of Texas charm, humor, and just plain common sense, but also the facts that so often go unreported in today's news. Her topics are many, but three that come up often in this collection are media ethics (got that? media ethics debated by a journalist!), hypocrisy (Al D'Amato conduct an ethics investigation?), and her favorite, the U.S. campaign financing system (which she refers to as ``legalized bribery'') and its fundamental effects on our society. ``The truth is that there is no political story more important than campaign financing. It's not just the hottest political story---it's the only story. It's the key to the real source of class warfare in this country.'' Not only are these issues and many others addressed intelligently with an eye toward ferreting out the truth, but they are often a laugh riot! The introduction to the book was written in January, 1998, just after the Lewinsky scandal broke, and all but one of the pieces were originally published from 1993 to 1997. Some of the events Ivans refers to are thus a bit dated today (early 1999), but her writing still packs a wallop.
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