Like former Pres. Jimmy Carter himself, his friends seem pretty bad-ass. They put up 500 signs around Plains, Ga., where Carter lives, that said, “Jimmy Carter for Cancer Survivor.”

Of course, the 90-year-old won’t live forever but it’s hard to make the case that he left anything on the field, as the saying goes, and it would be nice if he could.

Carter’s recent press conference announcing that he has metastatic cancer included two wishes for the rest of his time:

• That the last guinea worm, which causes a painful and horrifying disease and which Carter has worked to eradicate, precede him in death.
• That peace is achieved in the Middle East.

Neither outcome is likely, but the wish Carter didn’t make, for a long and happy life, is a done deal.