"I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years"
About this Quote
Ivins turns prudence into a punchline by treating it like a dental cleaning: advisable, mildly unpleasant, and easy to postpone. The line works because it hijacks the language of virtue. “Prudence” is supposed to be a steady habit, the boring backbone of adulthood. Ivins demotes it to an occasional ritual, implying that the people most loudly preaching caution often do so selectively, when it’s convenient, reputationally necessary, or legally required.
The specific intent is less self-confession than political diagnosis. Ivins made a career skewering Texas swagger, Washington sanctimony, and the bipartisan habit of calling recklessness “leadership” once it’s wrapped in flags and talking points. By spacing prudence out over “two or three years,” she mocks a culture that rewards impulsive certainty - the hot take, the hardline vote, the decisive war - and then retrofits “responsibility” after the fact.
Subtext: you can’t be permanently prudent in an environment designed to punish it. In politics and media, constant caution reads as weakness, hesitation, or insufficient “authenticity.” Ivins flips that incentive structure: if prudence is rare, it’s because the system treats it as optional.
Context matters. Writing through the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years and into the post-9/11 era, Ivins watched prudence become a prop: invoked to cut social spending, forgotten when it came to deregulation, military adventures, or political escalation. The joke lands because it’s not anti-responsibility. It’s anti-pretense - a reminder that “prudence” is often just branding for whoever gets to define risk for everyone else.
The specific intent is less self-confession than political diagnosis. Ivins made a career skewering Texas swagger, Washington sanctimony, and the bipartisan habit of calling recklessness “leadership” once it’s wrapped in flags and talking points. By spacing prudence out over “two or three years,” she mocks a culture that rewards impulsive certainty - the hot take, the hardline vote, the decisive war - and then retrofits “responsibility” after the fact.
Subtext: you can’t be permanently prudent in an environment designed to punish it. In politics and media, constant caution reads as weakness, hesitation, or insufficient “authenticity.” Ivins flips that incentive structure: if prudence is rare, it’s because the system treats it as optional.
Context matters. Writing through the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years and into the post-9/11 era, Ivins watched prudence become a prop: invoked to cut social spending, forgotten when it came to deregulation, military adventures, or political escalation. The joke lands because it’s not anti-responsibility. It’s anti-pretense - a reminder that “prudence” is often just branding for whoever gets to define risk for everyone else.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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