Mostly good riddance

January 25, 2005 5:21 AM

Goodbye and good riddance to William Safire. Though, yes, admittedly not good form to post a link to an Op-Ed piece, let alone several, Safire's retirement from the Times' Op-Ed pages is something of a landmark event, even to those of us who grew up reading his On Language pieces (which will continue) and did not yet know of his past as a speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon. His opinions were sometimes aggravating, and other times, infuriating, but they were always well-written. [many NY Times links]
posted by psmealey (18 comments total)

No need to apologize for the op-ed link -- this is an extremely well-composed post.
posted by painquale at 5:26 AM on January 25, 2005

To Safire, with love.
posted by juggernautco at 5:44 AM on January 25, 2005

i was expecting to read aggravating and infuriating opinions written by Safire on those last two links, but they're not written by Safire...
posted by NationalKato at 5:59 AM on January 25, 2005

Safire always struck me as the ultimate lightweight in former president's assistant clothing. His ideas are, frankly, lame, with some exceptions. And I guess I have a great big chip on my shoulder from the fact that he put together a book of "great" speeches entitled Lend Me Your Ears, and I had to teach from it one semester, against my better judgement, and it's the most error and typo-filled thing ever.

Maureen Dowd is lightyears ahead of this Nixon apologist.
posted by bardic at 6:03 AM on January 25, 2005

He's a genius compared to Brooks, his successor as Repub rep on the NYT editorial page, but that's the best i can do...This from 96, about his attacks on Hilary sums it up well.
posted by amberglow at 6:09 AM on January 25, 2005

Don't you think Mo Dowd suffers from the same syndrome that David Brooks does, though? She tries to wrap complex issues up in a neat little pop-psych or pop-soc packages using cutesy little terms that break down with any degree of analytic rigor.
posted by psmealey at 6:10 AM on January 25, 2005

At least Safire always had a point, whether you agreed with it or not. Dowd and Brooks rarely have one other then to try to express how clever they are(n't).
posted by psmealey at 6:17 AM on January 25, 2005

Media Matters has a roundup of Safire's more noteworthy lies. (and considering he wrote speeches for Nixon, it's not surprising)

you're right, in a way, psmealey, but Dowd doesn't try to come off as serious and scholarly about it--Brooks pronounces things; Dowd riffs on things. Brooks writes like what he's saying is a real breakthrough in social science or sociology, when it's really not.
posted by amberglow at 6:19 AM on January 25, 2005

Nicely put, psmealey. I discovered Safire over the Sunday breakfast table when I was in high school, only through 'On Language'. There was so little popular writing on etymology and usage, and I really enjoyed discovering words, connotations, and bits of history through that column. The first glimmerings that he might not be worthy of my adulation came when he wrote one too many of those columns purporting to list the 'latest' youth colloquialisms. His slang knowledge was so fuzzy, and so years-behind-reality, that the thought this guy is really out of touch started to enter my my mind. Then, of course, as I started to read the rest of the paper, I discovered exactly how out of touch he was. Far.
posted by Miko at 6:27 AM on January 25, 2005

On Language got really boring once it became a product of time spent on Google instead of in the library.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:38 AM on January 25, 2005

Actually, I find it more interesting now that he can get more or less up-to-date data via Google -- and the linguists he's consulting with more regularity, like our own Mo Nickels (Grant Barrett). He's still a doofus, but he's a slightly better informed doofus.

Also, it's ridiculous to say Dowd is a better columnist, unless you simply mean you prefer her ideological slant. She gets off about one good column a month; the rest are random gobs of triviality and would-be cleverness.
posted by languagehat at 7:44 AM on January 25, 2005

Dowd is glorified water cooler imperative. She is nu-skool.

Brooks is an unimaginative 'yes' man.

Safire's Nixon-tainted past says it all. He is old school, in all the wrong ways.
posted by garfield at 9:10 AM on January 25, 2005

His etymological ramblings aside, Safire was always a horror to read. If he couldn't be bothered to stay in touch with reality, he could at least have used an answering service that did.
posted by trondant at 9:27 AM on January 25, 2005

The best op-ed columnists provoke discussion. Though I find myself agreeing with Maureen Dowd, I often want to hit her with a wiffle-ball bat; too often, she's cute for the sake of being cute. To put it another way, the author gets in the way of the piece. I have a difficult time taking Brooks too seriously. But with Safire, you didn't have choice--you had to pay attention.

Predictably, I disagreed with Safire 90% of the time, but I could always find something to admire in his professorial tone. It's easy to imagine his columns as lectures, and--even if it was during the Nixon administration--he had a degree of professional experience that is lacking in most op-ed columnists.

I'll miss Safire the same way someone moving from Alaska to Hawaii might miss -50 degree blizzards. Yes, the snow was annoying, but it helped to shape your appreciation of the beach. And despite the fact that I think he was wrong much of the time, Safire could always hold his own.
posted by schambers at 9:29 AM on January 25, 2005

Don't you think Mo Dowd suffers from the same syndrome that David Brooks does, though? She tries to wrap complex issues up in a neat little pop-psych or pop-soc packages using cutesy little terms that break down with any degree of analytic rigor.

Amen -- same syndrome, but more noxious. At least Brooks makes a case, albeit unoriginal. Dowd shoots pellets from behind bushes and snickers (audibly) at her own cunning. It's juvenile, annoying and more unoriginal than anything Brooks has written.

And Safire: he may be short on substance but I admire his dexterity with language.
posted by Lisa S at 9:38 AM on January 25, 2005

Safire, Dowd, Brooks . . . why doesn't anyone cite Herbert & Krugman? [I smell a conspiracy]

Yes, I too enjoyed his language columns for decades . . . even before I understood what a right-wing apologist was. His columns since 9/11 have been little more than an embarrassment.
posted by ahimsakid at 1:37 PM on January 25, 2005

why doesn't anyone cite Herbert & Krugman? [I smell a conspiracy]

Krugman is everyone's favority nutty college econ professor, I think. While, IMHO he gets far too much credit and leeway as a "noted economist from Princeton" (he's no JK Galbraith or even Uncle Milty Freidman for that matter), he does make a fair bit of sense, even if he is Johnny one-note most of the time. Bob Herbert? Nothing at all negative say there. He is very sane, very measured and almost completely unaffected. Still waiting for him to slip up...
posted by psmealey at 10:15 PM on January 25, 2005

More stuff I know nothing about. Yet the name sounds familiar...
posted by nanojath at 7:16 PM on February 24, 2005