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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as "Shrub," died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.

David Pasztor, managing editor of the Texas Observer, confirmed her death.

The writer, who made a living poking fun at Texas politicians, whether they were in her home base of Austin, Texas, or the White House, revealed in early 2006 that she was being treated for breast cancer for the third time.

More than 400 news organizations, including CNN.com, subscribed to her nationally syndicated column, which combined strong liberal views and populist-toned humor. Ivins' illness did not seem to hurt her ability to deliver biting one-liners.

"I'm sorry to say (cancer) can kill you but it doesn't make you a better person," she said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News in September, the same month cancer claimed her friend, former Gov. Ann Richards.

To Ivins, "liberal" wasn't an insult. "Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left; there's nothing you can do about being born liberal -- fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed," she wrote in a column included in her 1998 collection, "You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/obi....ap/index.html Had to admire her spirit, even if you might not have agreed with her politics.

Matt