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.