As to “nattering nabobs of negativism,” this was written by a Baltimore woman whose name escapes me for the moment. Perhaps some one of my fellow FREEPERS remembers.
nattering nabobs of negativism,
Penned by speechwriter William Safire, the "nattering nabobs of negativity" was the phrase used by former Vice President, Spiro Agnew, to refer to the "liberal" media. Agnew had reason to discourage press scrutiny: not only was he in the Nixon administration, but he would later be convicted of tax evasion and money laundering in connection to bribes he took as governor of Maryland.
Ironically, the "nattering nabobs of negativity" more appropriately describes Nixon's vice president and his political progeny. Agnew's brand of rhetoric was shrill and aggressive. He questioned the patriotism of any who opposed the Nixon administration's Vietnam policy. He constantly and consistently defined GOP enemies as "communists" and "hippies" and saved his harshest words for those that opposed the war. In short, he was a pioneer of the rhetoric that the Republican Party and their conservative allies perfected in the 1990s through talk radio and the 1994 campaign, rhetoric that would later permeate all things conservative. Rhetoric that was bitter, fantastic, and divisive. ...