William Safire, RIP
From the New York Times remembrance: (h/t – The Corner)
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.
On a personal note, Mr. Safire was my college graduation speaker at Syracuse University in May of 1990.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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RIP Mr. Saphire, your commentary will be missed.
Comment by The_Livewire — September 28, 2009 @ 1:36 pm - September 28, 2009
I can’t say for certain that I ever read Saffire. I might have and just don’t remember. I’ll have to see if there’s some free archives to thumb through.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 29, 2009 @ 4:42 am - September 29, 2009
From WSJ:
Very nice.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 29, 2009 @ 4:45 am - September 29, 2009