Hunter S. Thompson's attorney tells the Boston Globe that Thompson's suicide had nothing to do with the results of the 2004 election. The cynical among us might say it's a first: something bad that can't be blamed on George W. Bush.
Thompson wasn't happy about Bush's re-election, of course. It's almost impossible to describe the contempt he held for this president. He called Bush a "butt boy" for the rich, he compared him unfavorably to Richard Nixon, and he seemed both terrified and embarrassed by the notion that the American people might actually want Bush to be their president. Writing for Rolling Stone about Bush's performance in his first debate against John Kerry, Thompson said: "It was pitiful . . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed."
Thompson predicted that Kerry would beat Bush in November, and he feared what the alternative would say about America. "The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way," Thompson wrote in Rolling Stone. "That is what this election is all about."
Thompson knew were he stood. In 2003's "Kingdom of Fear," he wrote: "We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world -- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us . . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.
"Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today -- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. "
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