"Libel of the dead is not an offence known to our law," read the 1887 court decision that dismissed a defamation of the dead suit. It continued, "The dead have no rights and can suffer no wrongs." That hasn't remained an absolute in the last 121 years, but the line on too much or too soon is still pretty difficult to cross.
Every day that I awaken to the obituary of one who was our political enemy in life, I know that the knives are out at Daily Kos, and it was no different this morning when I saw that Tony Snow has lost his battle with cancer.
Maybe its just age that is catching up with me. In my twenties I reveled in being a Front Page style character whom scandal made glow all over and a grisly murder sent packing merrily off with the other ghouls and minions of the newsroom to the nearest bar.
Or maybe its that the speed of technology has changed the comic timing of sarcastic reportage and comment on the shuffling off of mortal coils. When "two bits" follows "shave and a haircut" too closely the meaning gets lost. Maybe that's why, when the death of a Helms or a Falwell produces an immediate chorus of Louis Armstrong's You Rascal, You here at the great orange satan, I'm sad not only for the family who lost someone whom they loved but we couldn't. I'm sad for us, too.
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