He Was a Crook

↻ 2026-07-27

Thompson’s obituary for Richard Nixon, published in Rolling Stone on June 16, 1994.

Full text here, via archive.is.

Thompson simply declined to participate in the elder statesman obituary. The thesis is in the title and he spends the rest of it refusing to soften.

It’s not “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” there’s less invention here and less of the gonzo apparatus; the contempt does most of the work, and it’s contempt with thirty years of receipts in tow.

A 4 rather than a 5 because sustained hatred is a narrow instrument, and there are stretches where the venom is running ahead of the writing.

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