Conservative Icon William Safire Has Died
Conservative icon William Safire died today, according to the New York Times. My condolences to his friends and family. William Safire hardly ever said anything I agreed with, but his wit and style makes him stand out. Safire coined the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativism” among others and had a long-running column on language and grammar. He is certainly from the generation of great conservative thinkers, unlike this era of wingnut welfare recipients.
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.
Tags: William Safire
I agreed with none of his politics, but I loved his writings on writing, his colorful use of language, and his wit. His writings went down much more smoothly than Strunk and White, and his examples of poor grammar were often hysterical.
With his unwavering support of Richard Nixon, he was certainly one of a kind.
I’d be willing to bed the people who follow Beck and Coulter don’t even know who Safire is
I used to love watching him and Maureen Dowd go at it. There was a general affection between the two of them even though they were complete political opposites.
I wouldn’t want to bed any of them, a. price, but Mike M. might. 🙂
Mike — He was from that old school where folks could disagree and then go out for a beer; where disagreement didn’t mean disagreeable.
That seems quaint in our current circumstances, doesn’t it?
I used to love watching him and Maureen Dowd go at it.
Now there’s an image that makes me want to wash my my mind out with soap — immediately after scratching out my eyes. 🙂
Safire’s principal legacy: “everyone-does-it” cynicism.
JM is right about Safire’s political legacy — but his other legacy (the one that I admired) were those On Language columns in the Sunday NYT Magazine. Lots of passion, erudition and wit in those columns — sometimes it was hard to reconcile the guy who could write with such knowledge and commitment on the usage of language was the same guy in the political columns.
Notable Safire Quotes
h/t Tyler Cowan at The Marginal Revolution
Scratch your eyes out anyway Rhymthswithright, it’s win-win for the planet.
I used to read his On Language column. It was great stuff.
Safire was a conservative who neither needed nor used someone else’s talking points. He used his own brain, imagine that, and crafted well-argued columns. I always read him though I seldom agreed with him. Why? He made me think. Engaging your readers’ brains is what great columnists do, or at least did.
His On Language columns were just brilliant and so much fun to read. They will endure over time.
Condolences to his friends and family. I’ll miss him.