Rest in peace Mr. Safire.
Posted on 09/27/2009 11:19:38 AM PDT by fours
Edited on 09/27/2009 12:39:50 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
William Safire, a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times who also wrote novels, books on politics and a Malaprop’s treasury of articles on language, died at a hospice in Rockville, Md. on Sunday. He was 79.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Martin Tolchin, a friend of the family.
There may be many sides in a genteel debate, but in the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: there was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
He was a college dropout and proud of it, a public relations go-getter who set up the famous Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” in Moscow, and a White House wordsmith in the tumultuous era of war in Vietnam, Nixon’s visit to China and the gathering storm of the Watergate scandal that drove the president from office.
Then, from 1973 to 2005, Mr. Safire wrote his twice weekly “Essay” for the Op-Ed Page of The Times, a forceful conservative voice in the liberal chorus. Unlike most Washington columnists who offer judgments with Olympian detachment, Mr. Safire was a pugnacious contrarian who did much of his own reporting, called people liars in print and laced his opinions with outrageous wordplay.
Critics initially dismissed him as an apologist for the disgraced Nixon coterie. But he won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and for 32 years tenaciously attacked and defended foreign and domestic policies, and the foibles, of seven administrations. Along the way, he incurred enmity and admiration, and made a lot of powerful people squirm.
Before joining The Times, Mr. Safire was a senior White House speechwriter for President Nixon. He had previously been a radio and television producer and a U.S. Army correspondent. He began his career as a reporter for The New York Herald Tribune. From 1955 to 1960, Safire was vice president of a public relations firm in New York City, then became president of his own firm. He was responsible for bringing Mr. Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev together in the 1959 Moscow kitchen debate. In 1968, he joined the campaign of Richard Nixon.
He is the author of Freedom (1987), a novel of Lincoln and the Civil War. His other novels include Full Disclosure (1977), Sleeper Spy (1995) and Scandalmonger (2000). His other titles include a dictionary, a history, anthologies and commentaries.
Mr. Safire was born on Dec. 17, 1929, and attended Syracuse University; a dropout after two years, he returned a generation later to deliver the commencement address and is now a trustee. Since 1995 he has served as a member of the Pulitzer Board. He is married, has two children and lives in suburban Washington, D.C.
RIP, Mr. Safire.
wow. RIP
R.I.P.
The man who penned the immortal words “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Truly, he had a love of the language, a rare and precious gift that will be sorely missed in these increasingly illiterate days.
He will be missed by conservatives, classicists, and linguists alike. R.I.P.
Now there was a journalist.
What a loss. I was suspicious that he was in ill-health of late as he hasn’t been seen on any of the Sunday morning shows. RIP Mr. Safire.
Obit posted on NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/us/28safire.html
William Safire, a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times who also wrote novels, books on politics and a Malaprop’s treasury of articles on language, died at a hospice in Rockville, Md. on Sunday. He was 79.
The cause was cancer, said his assistant, Rosemary Shields.
There may be many sides in a genteel debate, but in the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: there was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
He was a college dropout and proud of it, a public relations go-getter who set up the famous Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” in Moscow, and a White House wordsmith in the tumultuous era of war in Vietnam, Nixon’s visit to China and the gathering storm of the Watergate scandal that drove the president from office.
Damn. Novak, Kristol, Safire— we’ve lost a lot of good people this year.
RIP to a phenomenal journalist. Mr. Safire will be greatly missed.
Great man, he will be missed, RIP.
Godspeed, Mr. Safire.
If he was on Nixon’s team, the odds are pretty good he was a plant.
Nixon had to have the worst advise since Napoleon was advised to attack Russia in November.
“Yeah, go on the David Frost show. These British, they’re all on our side”
Essay;Blizzard of Lies
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: Monday, January 8, 1996
Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.
Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.
1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor’s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.
She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe.
2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton’s cronies.
Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be “hell to pay” if the furious First Lady’s desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary’s lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.
3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man’s office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary’s lie with jail terms.
Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster’s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years — in Hillary’s closet, in Web Hubbell’s basement before his felony conviction, in the President’s secretary’s personal files — before some were forced out last week.
Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell’s father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.
Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.
One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in “lost” records — which investigators have — the White House “finds” its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.
Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.
Therefore, ask not “Why didn’t she just come clean at the beginning?” She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.
No wonder the President is fearful of holding a prime-time press conference. Having been separately deposed by the independent counsel at least twice, the President and First Lady would be well advised to retain separate defense counsel.
I saw Safire on Sunday talk shows a few times as the token conservative. He always struck me as a RHINO.
I liked Safire a lot
RIP
Everybody in Nixon's or Eisenhower's White House would come across as a RINO today. So would some in Reagan's.
And twenty years from now people will come up with a put-down for people who are around now.
Safire was a good and talented person who did good work and was right about more things than he was wrong about.
And that's saying something.
RIP.
RIP. I used to enjoy his “On Language” columns in the NYT magazine.
I’ll second that.
His writing was precise and lucid. His politics, not so much. It’ll be a long time before there is another like him.
And usually not the ones we’d care to see go.
R.I.P. Bill.
You’re gonna miss the coming festivities.
bookmark
Very sad. May he rest in peace.
RIP Mr. Safire. See you on the other side.
ping
RIP Mr. Safire.
I love your language columns and books.
RIP, Mr. Safire. I have his book “I Stand Corrected,” a treasure on usage, words and spelling, making me the grammar nazi that I am today :-)
Thanks for posting that, DFU- I actually remember reading it at the time and cheering for Safire.
He was from a different generation- and I’m sure he’ll be dumped on here by some for being a rino- but he was very effective at his peak and did some superb work. Further- he was able to write clear sentences that developed his theme while keeping the reader interested enough to keep reading. Reading a piece by Safire was always educational.
We don’t see that much anymore.
He will be missed. Is there an epidemic of Pancreatic Cancer?
May he rest in God's eternal peace.
Years later, Mr. Safire called Hillary Clinton a “congenital liar” in print. Mrs. Clinton said she was offended only for her mother’s sake. But a White House aide said that Bill Clinton, “if he were not president, would have delivered a more forceful response on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”
Mr. Safire was delighted, especially with the proper use of the conditional.
And no doubt was intended as such.
The pen, the sword--advantage pen.
Bravo, William Safire.
there are many deaths in this world on each and every day
may white light go up into his widow and fill her till she screams with godly pleasure
jesus be with his family on this most horrible day, my dog died recently so i know how his family must feel
pray for sarah and our troops
Bob Novak gone, now Safire.
RIP, good man. You will be missed.
May God bless his family and bring them comfort.
Bill Safire gave liberals Hell (and sometimes conservatives too, when appropriate), and that makes him a good guy in my book.
Rest in Peace Sir.
Rest in Peace.
...The same here, a great loss for conservatives and third party advocates, RIP, Mr. Safire...
On Language, which has appeared in The New York Times Magazine since 1979. This column on grammar, usage, and etymology has led to the publication of 10 books and made him the most widely read writer on the English language.
It's always a pleasure to read the opinions of a person who is a clear thinker and has a command of the English language, whether you agree or not.
R.I.P.
In matters of language, Safire was the successor to John Ciardi. Who will be Safire's successor?
William Safire was a language expert. For example, he might have explored what the "H" in RHINO represents, or why you used all caps to describe an odd-toed ungulate.
RIP
He had a great desire to be liked by liberals; so he denounced his old friend Pat Buchanan and endorsed Bill Clinton. I never read him after that.
Bob Novak never denounced Pat Buchanan to win points with liberals.
Amen. You lose your conservative card, in my opinion, when you vote for Slick.
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