Now don't all you folks who've been making fun of syndicated conservative columnist Robert Novak feel terrible? He has a brain tumor, people! He was happily relaxing on Cape Cod over the weekend and suddenly felt quite poorly and off he went to the hospital. Turns out: Not the coleslaw. Was brain tumor. Now everyone will be really nice about him for a little while, even though he just ran someone down in the street the other day.

But let us keep in mind a saying from back in the heady, early-90s, frequently said among members of the AIDS activist group ACT-UP. There was a bit of a habit of thinking that people with HIV could do or say no wrong, because the group was, overall, engaged in the project of providing them with self-determination. And yet—well, the saying was: "An asshole with AIDS is still an asshole." Tony Snow's cancer didn't make him any less of a sometime-liar in the service of the White House (just as it didn't detract from his good qualities); Robert Novak's brain tumor—and our best wishes for an effective and timely treatment!—also doesn't make him not a shnook. Seriously, did Saint Susan Sontag die for nothing, people?