Home > Opinion > Jamie Stiehm > Don't Canonize William Safire, He Could Never Live Down His Nixon Roots

Don't Canonize William Safire, He Could Never Live Down His Nixon Roots

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Dear Jamie, Thanks for bring up the reference to Parker. You should have also given credit to the leader of the abolition of slavery movement Presbyterian Benjamin Rush. Also the words of "a Government, of the people, for the people and by the people" were found in the flyleaf of John Wycliffe's Bible. Wycliffe is a patron saint of evangelicals. While you are at it, please study how Gen. Tadeusz Kościuszko's congressional fortune was to be used by the Presbyterians whom he befriended through Rush (his closet friend along w/ Jefferson).

Joe Losiak of FL 2:45PM September 04, 2010

William Safire was a great American who was a White House speechwriter for 4 years and thereafter a columnist and author for 33 years. Contrary to Steihm, he did show that he could more than write speeches that people recall 30 or 40 years later. If US News had competent editing, it could have pointed out to Steihm that Safire was "canonized" in the American sense: he was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bitter and clueless towards a celebrated dead author is not the way to launch a journalistic career.

patsw of NY 3:19PM October 11, 2009

Reading this article, I can only wonder just what type of person Jamie Stiehm really is. The venom and loathing is dripping in this article. Is really a way to remember a Pulitzer Prize winner? When Safire learned that he had been
the target of "national security" wiretaps authorized by Nixon, and, after noting that he had worked only on domestic matters, wrote with what he characterized as "restrained fury" that he had not worked for Nixon through a difficult decade "to have him—or some lizard-lidded paranoid acting without his approval—eavesdropping on my conversations." Those comments are nowhere in this article.
Frankly, I'm disappointed in US News, I thought that you were better than this.

Mike 2:45AM October 01, 2009

Reaction from AM-Radio/Teabagger/Foxnews/Birther/Republican:
"William who?"
"Safire? Wasn't she married to the Kingfish?"

JaJa of TX 6:02PM September 30, 2009

Sounds like someone needs to see the shrink for therapy because she's still stuck in America's Dark Ages . . . the 60's.

David of ID 12:35PM September 30, 2009

How very cheap and cruel...
Looks like we have a budding aspirant for admission to the Mary McGrory/Maureen Dowd Vitriol Club.
Is the Wilson Center getting hard up for scholars?

Jack Shaw of MD 12:23PM September 30, 2009

This article was in very poor taste. Most people being well aware of his sins such an article has done nothing except perhaps to increase the amount of brutality in an already violent world. No respect for the dead.

Realist of DE 2:11AM September 30, 2009

No one's talking about canonizing him. It is however foolish to write as though his ties to Nixon defined his entire life and all his accomplishments.

Scott of MN 7:26PM September 29, 2009