Small Favors
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins The Front Line Y'all can stop worrying. Ever since the President told us they were comin' in at Harlingen, everybody in Texas been gettin' ready. "The Red tide," said...
...We not gonna shoot 'til we see the whites of their eyes...
...When the only President we've got added that the nest of terrorists and subversives in Managua is only two days' drive from Harlingen, we all knew what was next...
...No sacrifice is too great when you're defending the Free World...
...On his latest Afghanistan tour, Wilson took along his latest lady friend, Annelise Ilschenko, a former Miss World U.S.A...
...We've synchronized our Rolexes...
...Not to mention the invasion of Texas...
...He meant the Texas border, of course...
...you're dead...
...They're Nicaraguans, too...
...Now the Russians can nuke us in seventeen minutes flat by missile, but we don't have to sit around worrying about it...
...Fal-furrias, naturally, and once the commies take the Butter Capital of Texas, they'll be swarmin' up Commerce Street in downtown Dallas...
...According to the Houston Post, she is a "dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauty," which I trust you collectors will note, since a genuine case of sloe-eyed beauty is hard to come by any more...
...Price of oil what it is today, we might as well die defending our country...
...Meanwhile, I want y'all to know there are Texans fighting for freedom all over this fair globe...
...But we're prepared...
...But these sneaky bastards from Nicaragua—there's three million of 'em down there, there's only sixteen million Texans, and they've Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, appears in this space every other month...
...Good Time Charlie from Lufkin been over there in Afghanistan, strapped some bandoliers across his chest, mounted horse and rode up into the Hindu Kush, hopin' to "kill Russians, as painfully as possible...
...All I want to know now is what Reagan's speechwriters smoke...
...He said he's not satisfied with "all those pine boxes" being sent back to Russia...
...Victory or Death...
...got us cornered between the Rio Grande and the North Pole...
...Here at the battlefront, we find it's the waiting that gets to you—two whole days from Managua to Harlingen by station wagon...
...And he's wearing black, monogrammed cowboy boots and he's got a former Miss World with him...
...They've infiltrated their own country...
...With the Soviets, by the time you've said, "No shit...
...The Red tide," said Ronnie, "will lap at our very borders...
...They've got to take them back to the villages where their fathers and mothers and neighbors can see them...
...There is some truly great, vintage stuff coming out, and anyone who has been refusing to listen to the Administration's case on grounds that it's a pack of lies has been missing just first-rate entertainment...
...Wilson delights in the Afghan style of revenge, which is to cut off the eyes, ears, and noses of the enemy...
...If we have to fall back and regroup, we'll meet at the Dairy Queen in the Gal-leria Shopping Mall...
...I know Texas women who've had to turn in their Neiman-Marcus charge cards...
...Wilson, also known as Timber Charlie for his devotion to the interests of the biggest industry in his district, is a long-time freedom fighter...
...Said Wilson on returning from the Eastern front, "Hell, they're still lining up to see Rambo in Lufkin...
...He was pals with the late An-astasio Somoza of Nicaragua, who also liked a good time...
...If y'all would listen to Ronnie more, you'd learn a good deal...
...When folks started callin' me a few weeks ago from around the nation, gaspin' in indignation or laughin' real hard, sayin' "My God, do you realize there's a Texas Congressman over in Afghanistan killing Russians...
...The menace from Managua is without question the most fun foreign-policy event since the time we decided the Congo was a threat to our national security...
...I want 'em bad wounded...
...Hell, nothin' else you can say at a time like that...
...I, of course, replied, "Must be Charlie Wilson...
...Do you know who them Sandinistas are1...
...Hail fahr, Texans have always been fighters...
...We're talking Sandinistas, not just Soviet/Cuban-type commies...
...Furthermore, said the Post, "she went everywhere with Wilson, not even flinching as she sank her high-heeled white leather boots into the thick brown ooze of Darra's main street...
...You couldn't have a tougher group in your front line...
...So they can't hide them...
...You'll be happy to hear that Wilson quit drinking not long ago, and the investigation of charges of cocaine use was dropped for lack of evidence...
...We're talking Bulgarians, Colonel Qaddafi, the Ayatollah of Iran, the entire drug traffic, desecration of synagogues, persecution of evangelicals, and subversion of two continents...
...Like blind...
...I, for one, especially appreciated the President explaining to us how the Sandinistas dress up in contra uniforms and go around commit-tin' atrocities, killin' their own people, so as to put the contras in bad smell...
Vol. 50 • May 1986 • No. 5
