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[Note: This material is copyright by the Des Moines Register, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Des Moines Register.]

Then Molly Ivins got in.

It was in the early '90s, and the Texas columnist had come as a speaker. She had long red hair, sparkling eyes and a warmth that disarmed the sarcasm with which she dissected the state of the world. We sipped drinks and talked politics.

It didn't matter that she was tired too, or off the clock. She bantered about stuff I knew barely enough about to keep up with. Beneath the perpetual bemusement was a sharp and disciplined mind.

It was that combination that made her so good at what she did.

When Ivins died Wednesday of breast cancer at age 62, the world lost more than a passionate advocate for what's right. It lost someone who could hold up a mirror to show us all how funny we really look.

It also lost a character, something most newsrooms need more of. When she worked at the New York Times, for example, Ivins was known to walk around barefoot.

The columnists I'd held up as role models before Ivins were earnest and indignant truth-tellers, writing passionately against social injustice.

But Ivins could do something else. She could make you feel outrage over stupidity, hypocrisy and corruption, and still give you permission to laugh. At the end of one of her columns, you weren't driven to despair because you'd had so much fun in her company.

This, for example, was her take after the November midterm election.

"Then we get to the real meat of this election. There are all manner of shuffle steps and politically shrewd things for the D's to do. But now is not the time to be clever. The Democrats won this election because we are involved in a disastrous war. We know how to do this: Declare victory, and go home.

"I noticed when Republicans are forced to talk about how to end this, they tend to announce that it's all hopeless: They have no ideas at all. Thanks, guys."

Before there was Jon Stewart, there was Molly Ivins. Her medium was syndicated columns, and his is comedy television, but both had a knack for making you laugh while telling more truth than the straight-faced news disseminators. Both could be biting without being cynical.

Ivins made it look easy, by writing as if she were chatting with you, but what she did took a spectacular amount of courage, and some audacity. Between the hate mail and the skittish editors, you can easily lose your voice.

She alluded to that in this excerpt from her Jan. 20 column about Hillary Clinton.

"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

"Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

"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."

I was wondering how one might honor Ivins, and then I stumbled upon this piece of advice in the 1993 forward to her book, "Nothin' but Good Times Ahead." As usual, she said it best:

"So hang in there, keep fightin' for freedom, raise more hell, and don't forget to laugh, too."

Thanks for keepin' it real, Molly.