William Safire, Dec. 17, 1929-Sept. 27, 2009

The Washington Post, in an obit on former political PR man and longtime New York Times columnist William Safire by staff writer Joe Holley, reports:

William Safire, 79, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and language maven for the New York Times, whose penchant for the barbed and memorable phrase first manifested itself in speeches he wrote for the Nixon White House, died Sept. 27 at Casey House, part of Montgomery Hospice in Rockville. A longtime friend and former colleague, Martin Tolchin, said Mr. Safire had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

For more than three decades, Safire wrote twice weekly as the resident conservative columnist on the Times op-ed page. He also wrote the popular "On Language" column in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, exploring grammar, usage and the origin of words. The column led to the publication of 10 books about words and language.

He arrived at the Times in 1973, fresh from his stint as a senior White House speechwriter for President Nixon. His catchy turns of phrase often outlived the context in which they were delivered. Perhaps the most memorable was the acidic and alliterative putdown he crafted for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to describe those in the press who opposed the Vietnam war. They were, Agnew said, "nattering nabobs of negativism."

Safire was able to bridge the gap between working for conservative politicians to writing a conservative political column -- which is not the same thing. His loyalty switched from his causes to the New York Times, although he always wrote from a political point of view. He explained it with a typical show of dry humor:

"I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian," Safire told The Post in 2004. "I was the first to really go after George W. [Bush] on his treatment of prisoners. ... The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment -- they're stuck with you for a long time."

He also wrote a popular column on language.

Safire will probably be remembered as a wordsmith's wordsmith.

Perhaps his most fitting memorial, in fact, is this graf in his obit in Politico.com by staff writers Jonathan Martin and Harry Seigel:

A life long lover of alliterative language, Safire is the inventor of Agnew's famous phrase, "nattering nabobs of negativism."

Safire would have loved it.