We've lost Fred Thompson:
Fred Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, GOP presidential candidate, Watergate attorney and actor who starred on the television drama "Law and Order," died on Sunday in Nashville. He was 73.
Mr. Thompson died after a recurrence of lymphoma, according to a prepared statement issued by the Thompson family. Mr Thompson ... was first diagnosed with cancer in 2004.
You probably lost track of Thompson after his 2008 presidential run, but he kept himself active on social media nearly to the end -- and he was really kind of a jerk until the end. His specialty was the wingnut one-liner -- this one, for instance, a month before his death:
His second-last tweet was a nod to the gun-rights crowd:
And this, about Richard Branson, was his final tweet:
A few more:
They say that a near-death experience can give a person a perspective on what really matters in life, that coming face-to-face with one's own mortality can make certain squabbles in one's life seem small and petty. Thompson got a cancer diagnosis in 2004. I don't know when he became aware of the recurrence that killed him. But it seems as if none of this ever made him think, "Y'know, I want to do more with my remaining days than script an ideological social-media Hee-Haw." He did this almost until the end.
(Crossposted at No More Mister Nice Blog)
