Times Columnist William Safire Dies At 79

William Safire, the former Nixon speechwriter and Pultizer Prize-winning NY Times columnist, died at 79 today. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. The Times notes, "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.'" Safire, a college dropout, also called Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar." You can read his columns here.

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By Jen Chung in News on September 27, 2009 2:52 PM

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NannyState

I missed his columns and now we all miss him.

-and Jen, he's still watching.

longacre

My favorite bit relating to Bill Safire:

NEW YORK–Stopping for lunch at a Manhattan Burger King, New York Times 'On Language' columnist William Safire ordered two "Whoppers Junior" Monday. "A majority of Burger King patrons operate under the fallacious assumption that the plural is 'Whopper Juniors,'" Safire told a woman standing in line behind him. "This, of course, is a grievous grammatical blunder, akin to saying 'passerbys' or, worse yet, the dreaded 'attorney generals.'" Last week, Safire patronized a midtown Taco Bell, ordering "two Big Beef Burritos Supreme."
(courtesy of The Onion, Sept. 20, 2000)