William Safire
“Pugnacious” is a word frequenting a number of remembrances of William Safire, the former Nixon speechwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times who died Sunday at the age of 79. The author of then-Vice President Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” line in 1970, Safire also distinguished himself as a conservative political columnist and ardent defender of clear and concise English at The Times. He won his Pulitzer in 1978 for columns skewering Bert Lance, President Jimmy Carter’s controversial budget director. The Times’ obituary described Safire as a forceful conservative voice in the paper’s “liberal chorus.” He was old-fashioned in reporting for his columns and unafraid of blunt appellations, such as when he called then-first lady Hillary Clinton a “congenital liar.” Like Robert Novak before him, William Safire’s passing leaves a sizable void in the world of newspaper punditry.
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