Memories in Passing.

Kathleen Parker writes about the death life of a friend, Kudzu cartoonist Doug Marlette, 57, who died in a Mississippi car accident five years ago.

We weep that Marlette missed Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, two characters he would have relished revealing. He missed Palin entirely, but he did catch a glimpse of Obama and was deeply skeptical of his presidential candidacy.

Because I had been in Boston for Obama’s convention speech in 2004, I was convinced that he was a future president and said so. Marlette just chuckled and said, “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

For someone addicted to deadlines at an early age, Marlette was proudly at ease with ambiguity and patient in the way of old souls. He knew that the gods exact justice from those who try to steal their fire. He was usually prescient.

Though a committed Democrat, Marlette was no ideologue and wasn’t fond of those who were. He would have rolled in clover at the sight of his colleagues clamoring to hold up the hem of Obama’s raiment. His cackle would have rattled the rafters upon watching Palin (whom he would have admired as a force of nature) work crowds into a froth while his own tribe writhed in revulsion at her flirty ignorance. He would have understood as few others that, though Palin may have lacked fluency in the language of elites, she knew instinctively how to create and then harness emotional contagion.