For whatever reason, I’ve seen a lot of discussion of this piece by Nancy Snow on the intertubes today:
Today’s Google News has the wedding of reality TV star Khloe Kardashian and Los Angeles Lakers’ forward Lamar Odom getting more hits than the passing of New York Times columnist, William Safire. Now granted, Khloe and Lamar have more blogger followers, including Perez Hilton’s “wedding deets” to share with those not privy to be in Los Angeles.
This suggests, albeit unscientifically, that the death of an esteemed giant in American journalism is less newsworthy than a second-tier celebrity wedding. The media weren’t reporting the wedding of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, but two people who have been dating for a month and decided to get hitched before basketball season begins.
I find this pretty comical. I have nothing against William Safire. He was, by all accounts, a kind and charming man. His opinion columns were quite reasonable by the standards of right-wing punditry (though crazy by just about any other standard). His pieces on language were witty and entertaining (though they perpetuated outdated notions about the nature of language). Is that all it takes to be an “esteemed giant in American journalism” these days?
It’s hard for me to see how Safire was any less of an unjustly famous celebrity than Lamar Odom is. The primary differences between celebrity pundits and celebrity athletes are that the athletes can be benched or traded if they perform badly and that the children of celebrity athletes must display some kind of talent before being handed million-dollar contracts.
General Winfield Stuck
Yes, but neither was on American Idol, so who cares.
Eric U.
This is a good point. The difference between Paris Hilton being hired to do Safire’s old job and when Safire was hired to do it is that Hilton is a celebrity; nobody had heard of Safire. I’ve come to believe that the Internet has reduced the need for pundits in traditional print media to almost nothing. Other than Krugman, most of the punditry I see is old news by the time it gets published.
James K Polk, Esq.
Ahem, Lamar just won a championship with the Lakers. That makes him a god in LA (at least a demi-god), the entertainment capital of the world. That makes him big news. It’s not like Safire got frozen out, people were talking about it.
It’s as though they have extrapolated the “more ratings = better” model for Fox into every facet of life.
Deschanel
Safire, that erudite neocon, was well-known in the circles that knew him well. He was never really a ‘celebrity’ on some national scale. I’d prefer him to these Kardashian whores, though. Dreadful.
Parole Officer Burke
William Safire is rolling over in his grave as we speak.
DougJ
William Safire is rolling over in his grave as we speak.
Sorry, my browser was freaking out on me while I was writing this and there are some errors.
Parole Officer Burke
@DougJ: William Safire frowns on browser errors as well! Frowns from beyond the grave!
Robert Waldmann
Fire your copy editor.
“His pieces on language were witty and entertaining (though they perpetuated outdated about the nature of language). ”
I think you might want to add a word in between “outdated” and “about.”
I’m fairly sure that you are familiar with the, outdated notion that you should have written “(although” not “though,”
or is that an “outdated shibboleth” (sp ? who cares). Though I might have meant to write “the outdated crankiness about the nature of language, that leads some to type “(although.”
no dammit I typed “(although” I did not type “(although.” !
Warren Terra
Safire was hired for the same reason they tried Kristol, and now Douthat: to express the Id of the Republican party in terms understandable by non-sociopaths. Kristol was pretty good at the job.
cleek
Syntax Error, Line 5: Missing ‘)’.
Syntax Error, End Of File: Missing ‘.’.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
You Nattering Nabomb of Negativeismness.
Carnacki
Did Lamar Odom bang the drums for an Iraq war a month after the Sept. 11th attacks like William Safire? Then no matter what he does in his career, he leaps ahead of Safire in the game of life.
arguingwithsignposts
I always liked “On Language,” although I never read his opinion pieces. Actually bought a couple of the “on language” books because it was a delicious slice of language appreciation. I will miss that. Like I said, as for the politics – meh.
BTW, he had a good piece some time ago about the “dog whistle,” IIRC.
Delia
Ask me if I care. Go on. Just ask me. . . .
Parole Officer Burke
The revenant ghost of William Safire approves of your copyediting, but glares at you balefully for the pusillanimous, [p@ssy]footed nonprolixity of your critique, as well as your overuse of parentheticals!
Tom Levenson
W. reference to Warren Terra at # 9 — yes, Safire was the NYT’s token conservative/Presidential criminal behavior-enabler back in the days when the great grey lady was in fact a reasonably liberal voice. And it is astonishing to see how pitiful his successors in that slot have been; Kristol, simply an embarrassment, and Douthat punching so far out of his weight class I haven’t even been able to muster much outrage. He’s a 90 second first round mercy TKO if ever there was one.
But it’s only by such weak comparisons that Safire counts high on any journalism scale — unsurprisingly, given that he wasn’t a journalist in any meaningful sense of the word. He was an ex Nixon fluffer/hack turned opinion monger who, in his later years, developed the truly worrying habit of channelling his dead boss. Imagine Sinclair Lewis at a Hollywood seance trying to convince Albert Einstein that he could communicate with the spirits of the dead (this actually happened).
Safire was the canary in the coal mine for the death of the MSM, not a standard bearer for time-tested journalistic practice. DJ’s got it just right on this one. He’s too kind, in fact, IMHO.
John Cole
It is really not too hard to understand. Any one who is perceived to be getting more attention than a prominent member of the village both surprises and upsets them.
Now let’s get back to the important shit for these guys- going to bat for a director who raped a 13 year old. Because I know if my neighbor took nude pictures of a teen then bagged her, they would be rushing to his defense. Especially if he was black. You remember all those pieces by Anne Applebaum about Marcus Dixon, don’t you?
t jasper parnel
This is spot on. I would argue, however, that Safire on language was duller than dishwater.
Parole Officer Burke
My latest comment is in moderation for language Mr. Safire himself originally used in print. Ah, irony. How I missed thee.
The Moar You Know
William Safire was not in any way, shape, or form an “esteemed giant in American journalism”. He was a right wing hack from the get-go, assigned to the cellar that is the opinion section and venerated by a few old folks, largely in nursing homes, who clung to an archaic version of the English language. That his most famous work, a four-word phrase, was delivered thirty-five years ago by a half-term vice president who was one of the few people in the world who could lay a valid claim to being a meaner and more venal version of Dick Nixon shows the measure of the man, his audience, and the permanance and meaning of his work.
He was a nobody who died unmourned and will be wholly forgotten in a decade, save for those unfortunate enough to be forced by genetic necessity to call themselves his family.
amorphous
OH MY GOD! PEOPLE ARE POORLY INFORMED AND FOCUS ON INSIGNIFICANT THINGS RATHER THAN IMPORTANT NEWS!
This is why “independents” decide elections. Because people don’t care about anything. For the record, I read NEITHER story.
JK
Doug,
I wasn’t the biggest fan of William Safire, but I’ll give him credit for this:
William Safire: Conservative Critic of Media Monopoly
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/477991/bill_safire_media_reformer
Safire was no “esteemed giant in American journalism” for me. I’d take the columns of Murray Kempton, Lars-Erik Nelson, Walter Karp, John Hess and many others any day of the week over Safire.
I think tv networks should run crawls at the bottom of the tv screen highlighting the biggest gaffes made by pundits whenever they appear on the air. For example, when Bill Kristol appears on tv, a crawl should appear that repeats the stupid assertion he made on Fresh Air that there was no history of conflict or tension between Shī‘ah and Sunni in Iraq.
Thanks for mentioning TED in your Emotional rescue post. The TED website
http://www.ted.com/index.php
totally kicks ass and everyone should check out their great lectures.
ericblair
@John Cole: It is really not too hard to understand. Any one who is perceived to be getting more attention than a prominent member of the village both surprises and upsets them.
Oh hell, as soon as Pumpkinhead bought the farm a couple of years ago I turned off the TV for a week. Any member of the Village cashing in his chips gets more wailing and rending of garments on network nooze than any world leader, except maybe St Ronnie and I think that was a close one.
JK
@John Cole:
Speaking of Anne Applebaum, as Doug pointed out in his previous post, https://balloon-juice.com/?p=27604
Applebaum has a flagrant conflict of interest. Her husband is Poland’s foreign minister.
The Dangerman
Speaking of the power of celebrity, it’s reported that Sarah Palin’s book is coming out with the title being “Going Rouge”; must be related to the Lipstick on a Hockey Mom thing.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
Yea I remember the Dixon fiasco well. No Romeo and Julliet law in Georgia, though the Georgia Supremes did right and overturned the conviction/ But now he’s a Dallas Cowboy, which really should be a crime.
Linkmeister
There does seem to be a welcome offered by the Villagers to Presidential ex-speechwriters, doesn’t there?
Pat Buchanan and Safire wrote for Nixon, Michael Gerson at the WaPo wrote for GWB.
Huh. Flack for a President wouldn’t have been the career path I’d have thought of if I wanted to be a respected member of the Important Journalists Club.
Svensker
@Carnacki:
Yes. Thank you.
Brachiator
Walter Cronkite, an esteemed giant in American journalism, died on July 17, 2009. William Safire, not even close.
Adam Collyer
@John Cole: Wait, you mean like the kinds of things they’re accusing that poor census worker of?
I ended a sentence with a preposition “in honor” of William Safire. He’s correcting me at this very moment in another life…
Mnemosyne
I hadn’t even realized that Safire was still alive, so I have to admit that news of his passing generated more puzzlement than sadness.
I was more interested to find out that the star of some of Walt Disney’s first films, the Alice comedies that he made in the early 1920s, only died last month. But that has a lot to do with who signs my paycheck.
JK
ericblair,
Speaking of Tim “If It’s Sunday, It’s MTP” Russert:
‘Big Russ’ recalled as classic South Buffalo dad
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/808115.html
Russert statue moves to home ground in South Buffalo
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/735997.html
Adam Collyer
@amorphous: Also…
THIS.
Skepticat
Walter Cronkite, yes. William Safire, not even within screaming distance. With a megaphone. Or an amplifier cranked to the max. Digitally enhanced.
Morbo
OK, tell me these two news items don’t cause your irony detectors to explode:
1: Roman Polanski is arrested based on a warrant stemming from the rape of a thirteen-year-old. *Poland is expected to fight his extradition to the United States.*
2: Poland okays forcible castration for pedophiles
General Winfield Stuck
Last time I checked the MSM in general rates with the public somewhere just below used car salesman, and just above,,,, well.
Though random sound bytes over time has deleterious affects on the incurious.
JK
@Brachiator:
Very good point. I was disappointed, but not shocked, to see Chris Matthews drooling over William Safire tonight. I was similarly disappointed to see the NewsHour devote a segment to him.
Mark S.
Geez, I had no idea Safire was still writing for the NY Times up until 2005 (I would have guessed he retired in the late 1990’s). My impression was that conservatives saw him as a milquetoast token on the dreaded liberal behemoth NY Times, while liberals didn’t pay much attention to him.
This suggests, albeit unscientifically, that I don’t think Safire was a giant in American journalism.
Jason Bylinowski
Erm, yeah, I see your point, but when you examine the studies of a lot of paleocons (and I do this everyday as an in-home and in-office IT guy), you certainly do find a lot of careworn copies of Full Disclosure and Lend Me Your Ears, so I can say that he is well-regarded by a certain age and demographic. Of course, you could say the same about Lamar “Basketball Guy I Never Heard Of Until Just Now” Odom, but then again, that demographic doesn’t rule the world, now does it.
Suffice it to say though, when I’m in a home with Safire in it, I breathe easy. “I can sit down and converse with these wingers”, I says to me. “They’re just me minus a well-examined empathy.” If I walk in and there’s a copy of America: The Last Best Hope by Bill Bennett, the back of my neck starts to itch. But of course that’s not nearly as fear-inducing as the ever-so-rare spotting of a copy of Slander by Ann Coulter: when this occurs, Jason puts his head down, gets to work and gets the hell outta Dodge before shit starts to get personal. But of course, THEY’RE always the ones who wanna talk politics…I could go further into it but I’m currently happy and don’t want to spoil it. I will end though with the tiny anecdote that myself and a friend of mine over lunch successfully propagated the rumor that Ann Coulter is really Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, only without the beard. People will believe anything given enough beer.
Seanly
Hmmm, do I care less about the Khardasian faux celebrity going-ons or the passing of some conservative blowhard?
Trick question – I don’t care about either.
Naughty words like fat a$$ and a$$hole removed to be nicer.
Fulcanelli
@DougJ:
Clearly, this is how realignments happen.
Ash
Full disclosure: I had never heard of William Safire in my life. So when he died, I was just like, “Meh? Ok, that sucks, but really, I wonder how much ass Kim Kardashian is going to show in her bridesmaid’s dress.”
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah, how’s that bread and circuses, don’t pay attention to those eggheaded elitist liberals with their boring old facts, workin’ out for ya?
That sentence suggests, albeit unscientifically, that there are a lot of WATBs with too much spare time on their hands.
*And if the phrase “This suggests, albeit unscientifically” isn’t the hallmark of a world class tosser, I don’t know what is.
pseudonymous in nc
Not quite: Safire was valued for his connections to that id. As Maureen Dowd once noted to Jon Stewart, he had his own private phone line at his desk that didn’t go through the NYT switchboard.
Kristol had connections, but he was a lazy fucker who made clear that he had no respect for the NYT, or for journalism, by phoning in his columns. Douthat probably has more respect for the NYT, on account of his per-word, but isn’t plugged in.
One thing I’ll credit Safire with: his desire to see the one-cent coin removed from circulation.
slag
@John Cole:
I believe the verb you were looking for there was “raped”.
Amy
Speaking of non-celebrities, slimebucket Riehl wants folks to know that Andy Williams
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/09/andy-williams-sings-marxist-river.html
Wow – You mean Andy Williams is still alive? Huh.
slag
@Ash: Full disclosure: Who is Kim Kardashian? And, for that matter, who is Khloe Kardashian? Are they sisters?
Although, now that I think about it, I don’t really care.
Keith G
@Carnacki: @Carnacki:
I’m thinking Lamar was busy banging something else.
Ash
@slag: Yeah, you’re really better off never knowing. I’m not aware of this stuff by choice, it just seeps into my brain.
Penfold
Oh, William Safire…As someone with a background in both linguistics and English Lit, every time he writes about language I’m torn between the urge to punch him in the face and the urge to weep for humanity. His ideas about how language works and what’s “proper” or not are…special.
His notions are outdated, alright. But here’s what really kills me: Safire wasn’t born until 1929. By the early 1920s, at the latest, notions of prescriptive grammar were largely being dismissed (Sapir, et al), and in the 1930s they, for all intents and purposes, disappeared (see Bloomfield, Amerindian Imperative). And this wasn’t just a condition of the relatively small community of academic linguists. I have a mainstream English usage guide from the early 1950s (I have an eccentric personal library), which is about the time that Safire would have been an undergrad, that espouses at length the sentiment that “correct” usage is largely dictated by audience and circumstance.
Now, if Safire were just some guy on the street, this wouldn’t matter. But he sells himself as some amazing expert on the matter which is simply (and painfully) untrue.
One of the more amusing take-downs of select Safire quotes is, if I remember, in Steven Pinker’s general audience book, The Language Instinct
taodon
It’s really quite simple. Any time a black person gets press it must obviously be a mistake/left-wing media conspiracy.
Midnight Marauder
@The Moar You Know:
So can this be added to the Lexicon somehow? Because that was pretty awesome.
Legalize
Way OT: Matt Millen = FAIL.
burnspbesq
There is something seriously amiss in any world where Billy Kristol is handed a career and Jeffrey Jordan has to walk on.
General Winfield Stuck
Nope, but they are original. As one who practices the dark art of making up new words with outrageous spelling, it is the only thing I will miss about Mr. Safire. Any little thing to throw off the Grammar Nazi’s is thumbs up in me book.
burnspbesq
Oh, BTW, the Angels are going to clinch tonight.
That’s the Anaheim Angels, bitches.
There is a special circle of Hell reserved for anyone other than a broadcaster or a team employee who refers to them as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Ash
@burnspbesq: If Jeffrey played for Northern Illinois or Illinois State or something, he might have had a chance.
But then basketball and the media elite don’t really compute. Basketball generally involves…being good at something.
Penfold
@General Winfield Stuck
I’m sorry, I might be misunderstanding something. The things of Safire’s I’ve read generally made him seem like a Grammar Nazi type to me, which is exactly what I didn’t like about him, as reflected in the preposition joke by another commenter above (forgot who, sorry). Are you saying this wasn’t necessarily the case? I was definitely not a regular reader, so I could have gotten the wrong idea from the samples of his work with which I am familiar. If so, my mistake.
burnspbesq
@Ash:
You obviously never saw me play.
Penfold
@General Winfield Stuck
Just to clarify: I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with your dark art. These sort of protect-the-English types who venerate the most canonical authors while crapping on whoever they feel like, seem to be forgetting how many words, e.g. Shakespeare made up.
General Winfield Stuck
@Penfold:
Well, all I can say is that anyone who coins the phrase Nattering Nabobs of Negativism and other pithy phrases, isn’t exactly speaking the Queens English that I learned from English comp classes. As for basic grammar, I support it so that writing makes sense, but what I know of Safire, he prided himself in being a college dropout and not adhering necessarily to the strictures of academia with regard to a fixed formal definition of the English Language/ But I was a science major and am no expert on the literary arts.
tc125231
@The Moar You Know: Nice summary.
Comrade Kevin
@burnspbesq:
Eew, they’re only slightly less awful than the Yankees and Red Sox.
kth
It wouldn’t be so awful if Odom, who has accomplished something in his life, were the draw rather than the ingenue Kardashian. But she, not he, is the focus of attention.
Penfold
@General Winfield Stuck
Well, I mean, I may have had too harsh an opinion of him. I only had a minimal acquaintance with his work, because I got an impression from some stuff of his I did read years ago that he was more sort of uptight than it sounds like he was, and as a consequence didn’t read a great deal more.
But yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with you that the important thing is comprehensibility. A lot of other stuff is just dependent on context/environment/audience. For example, I’ve been writing like I have a stick up my @ss tonight because I’ve been reading academic journal articles all day, and the one pretty much follows from the other. It’s the silly stuff that some of these people push, like the old bit about “split infinitives”, taken from trying to impose the rules of Latin on English; of course, in Latin you can’t split an infinitive because it’s one word, and in English it’s two and…argh.
Anyway, sounds like Safire wasn’t as much like that as I thought, so…oops, my bad.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nancy Snow
Fuck William Safire. Could that boring old barfmat take it downtown for a three-pointer? Hell no! And don’t even get me started on his free throw percentage, or the fact that the man never dribbled the ball (but never got called on traveling because hey, IOKIYAR). And any time you asked him why he spent so much time warming the bench or was always bricking shots that a fucking blind cripple with epilepsy could have swished he called you a “nattering nabob of negativism”.
cokane
George W Bush was the Paris Hilton Presidency
burnspbesq
@Wile E. Quixote:
Umm, I think you’ve mistaken Safire for Tyler Hansbrough. Easy mistake to make. They’re both ugly whiners who play for the Evil team.
Maus
“This suggests, albeit unscientifically, that the death of an esteemed giant in American journalism is less newsworthy than a second-tier celebrity wedding.”
Is there any doubt at this point? Anyone who claims otherwise is a goddamned fool.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nancy Snow
I like the phrase “this suggests, albeit unscientifically” and would like to start using it in conversations but am somewhat confused about correct usage. Since Mr. Safire is dead can someone here help me out? Would it be correct to use the phrase in the following sentence?
Thanks.
Penfold
@Wile E. Quixote
If I may be so bold as to stand in for the deceased, I think that’s clearly appropriate usage. A+/4.0
Omnes Omnibus
@Wile E. Quixote: Yes. Yes, it would.
Wile E. Quixote
@cokane
Thank God and the FSM that the George W. Bush sex tape was never released.
burnspbesq
Welcome to the Natural History Museum, kids. Over here, we have the fossilized remains of the last real Conservative, Homo Bartletiensis.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/24/fiscal-spending-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
Jeez, what’s with this guy, talking about raising taxes. Limbaugh and Beck will have him waterboarded and bastinadoed on prime-time teevee.
Will
Who can forget this gem of Safire hackery?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/opinion/18safire.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire&pagewanted=print&position
Brachiator
@cokane:
No. Maybe the Lindsey Lohan Presidency.
Paris Hilton seems to demonstrate a healthier degree of self-knowledge. She lands on her feet while other celebutards stumble and fall.
burnspbesq
@Wile E. Quixote:
Eek. There isn’t enough brain bleach in the universe to blot out that image. You are one sick motherfucker for thinking that.
JK
@Wile E. Quixote:
You’re on fire today. Please keep it up.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
This suggests, albeit unscientifically, that if your wife gets killed by the Manson family and you direct a couple of movies that get nominated for Academy Awards that it’s OK with Manne Applebaum that you’re a rapist pedophile.
cokane
Lohan doesn’t have the same zing to the average person. She’s just not as well known. And Bush, actually did find a way to miraculously land on his feet several times–in 2000, and 2004.
cokane
plus there’s no Lohan pedigree afaik
Brachiator
@Ash:
Ass for days. And check out the last photo in the UK Daily Mail coverage:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1216466/Kim-Kardashian-looks-graceful-grey-sister-Khloe-gets-set-quickie-wedding.html
Safire, on the other hand, was just a horse’s ass.
Wile E. Quixote
burnspbesq
I’ve heard it doesn’t get really bad until 8:18 into the video where Cheney, Karl Rove and Larry Craig (recognizable only by his wide stance as he was wearing nothing but a gimp mask and a pair of flag pin nipple piercings) enter the room with 30 yards of black visqueen and a 55 gallon drum of Crisco. As bad as it is though it’s still not as bad as John Hinderaker and Dan Riehl doing their “Two neo-cons, one cup” video.
wasabi gasp
@cokane: Also, he survived pretzel.
Wile E. Quixote
@burnspbesq
According to the latest edition of the Huffington Post style guide the correct way to have written this would have been:
AnotherBruce
Fuck this, Another Giant-Who-Walked-The-Earth has passed away today. Harry Donovan, argueably the greatest rock and roll rigger of all time and author of Entertainment Rigging the seminal and unsurpassed technical book that has taught a generation of riggers how to rig has departed our humble orb. So the next time you’re at a concert or a big indoor production. look up at that one ton bank of lights above your head and give Harry some thanks that you haven’t met a crashing violent death because some punk roady doesn’t know how to hook up a cable and shackle at a 30 degree angle.
Safire is (was) an ant compared to this guy.
Chuck Butcher
Saffire is dead, crap my day is ruined – mourning garb is now required. Cold weather is hammering the fly population – resulting in cumulative grief exceeding that for Bill.
A propagandist for the right cashes in his chips and somehow that counts in the scheme of what things? I sometimes read that hack to see what that bunch was getting up to, not for any stylistic points and certainly not for any sensibility.
Since I watch neither basketball nor reality shows I have no idea who either of the others are and care even less. Watching Tweety have a slobber-fest over Bill convinced me I’d just wasted some minutes I’d never get back to do something useful, like pick my nose, ever again. Ahhh, time machine where are you when you’d be handy…
JK
@Wile E. Quixote:
My understanding is that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity make a cameo appearance near the end of the video.
Brachiator
@AnotherBruce:
Safire is (was) an ant compared to other ants
this guy.Fixed.
And thanks for the info on Harry Donovan.
Anne Laurie
Bingo. “Pundit” as a media job is kind of a strange evolutionary dead end — it was basically invented by the courtiers to The Powers That Be as a way of informing us peasants how we were supposed to think about the actual news items (some of them including genuine facts) appearing in the same info-channel. This may have been marginally possible when Joe Alsop and Walter Winchell were still working, but television never gave the Sabbathday Gasbags much traction, and the internet provides ten thousand sources who can do better work faster.
Safire’s “non-political” language column was not about celebrating the richness of English and the inventiveness of its users — it was intended as a form of gatekeeping to establish that only people with the mastery and willingness to use the peculiarly etiolated version of “correct” grammar endorsed by Safire’s circle deserved to be heard. The Nixon administration of Safire’s glory days celebrated what they were pleased to refer to as the Silent Majority, but it was all too ready to attack any individuals from that ‘majority’ who made the mistake of trying to speak for themselves. Ask John Kerry — thirty-five years after establishing their thuggish credentials at Kent State and Watergate, the Republican Ratfuckers were still prepared to spend millions of dollars and commit treason rather than permitting a non-compliant Vietnam veteran into “their” White House. The comparative flaccidity of such new Conservative “pundits” as Ross Douthat and William Kristol is a condition to be celebrated by all of us who love freedom and creativity more than censorship and timidity.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@burnspbesq:
No shit, he is talking sense. The Beckerheads and Dittoheads are going to eat this guy alive. He is just asking for a good ol’ party waterboarding (or is that waterboarding party?).
And Bartlett is at Forbes? He still luvs him sum RayGun but he is right about our current situation and the Republican response to it. His analysis of how the party got this way is pretty interesting too.
I have read Safire in print when I have run across a column but he is so unremarkable that I have nothing to say about him other than I won’t miss his mental meanderings.
Jack Roy
A quibble: First, Kobe Bryant and supporting cast won a championship, and anyway who cares what Laker fans think—they cheer for the Lakers (where’s the /shudder tag on this comments form?).
In more seriousness, I wonder if what’s driving the perceived injustice in the wedding coverage isn’t a judgment that Odom isn’t sufficiently famous but rather a knee-jerk gag at anything Kardashian (still checking to see if I spelled that right because I’m still proud to say it took me a long time even to know who that was… hey, spelled right!). I mean, the blushing bride—lovely day for her and her family and all, but—is famous for being the older and/or younger sister to Kim Kardashian (checking… right!), herself famous for being a poor man’s Paris Hilton, herself famous for being a latter-day Zsa Zsa Gabor, herself notoriously “famous for being famous.” That may be good enough to get within six degrees of Kevin Bacon (via Ms. Hilton… and Sean Penn?!), but there’s still something post-postmodern and absurd about the vicissitudes of celebrity status that seems worthy of comment.
Not to be taken too far, of course; I find this hand-wringing that sufficient Attention which Must Be Paid is being handed off to a third-tier media celebrity instead of a third-tier journalistic one (“an esteemed giant” of the profession? Please.) to be more than nauseous.
(That usage of “nauseous” was for you, Bill Safire. Sorry for calling you a third-tier journalistic celebrity.)
wasabi gasp
It’s late, I’m hungry, and a big ass nabob sounds downright delicious.
Mark S.
@Jack Roy:
In the first few post-Shaq years, the Los Angeles Kobes sucked pretty bad. Kobe of course is by far the most talented player on the team, but they didn’t become contenders until they got Gasol for a few sticks of chewing gum from Memphis.
Odom’s a big piece of the puzzle as well. He has too many games where he only scores two points, but he is a matchup nightmare. Now that they added Artest, I don’t see anyone beating them next year.
grumpy realist
Pundit: water-carrying
hackentertainer who thinks he’s an intellectual.Brian Griffin
DC pundits apparently have a hard time understanding how they rank below c-list celebrities in the celebrity game. After all, they are often on tv.
But even in the entertainment world, the interviewers and the writers are seldom stars.
Xenos
@Will: Safire’s work does not wear well with time. I googled up his apologia for calling Hillary Clinton a ‘congenital liar’, and it is unbearable. Pedantic, stuffy, and unpersuasive of anything but the conclusion that Safire was a small, small man.
Brian J
Isn’t the more likely explanation that few people who would actually give a shit about this wedding knew who Safire was and even fewer were actual readers when he was writing his column?
Jason
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Yeah – wtf is “scientifical” suggestion?
I don’t understand the point of Snow’s article. Is it media criticism, or moral criticism? One variety of media hagiography is good but another bad? Whether they concern Khardasian or Safire, either way people are obsessed with asses.
SGEW
@AnotherBruce:
I hadn’t heard this . . . end of an era, friend. End of an era.
I think I’ll go double check some Crosby shackle angles in his memory.
Seanly
@Brachiator:
The Kardashians are not very attractive. Overgrown mammary glands and bulbous buttocks only go so far. Are they Latina? I usually go big for the Latinas, but find none of those sisters attractive.
Is there a good word for “celebrities” who’ve done nothing to earn or rate all the attention they get? I saw “celebutards” up above, but we need something even more disparaging. Worthless a$$holes may fit, but is not family friendly.
SGEW
re: Harry Donovan
Obituary here.
The pro’s pro.
GusThePrimate
Safire a celebrity? Come on. I’m sure more than 9 of 10 Americans can’t tell you who he was, and only a scattered few could identify him in a lineup.
Original Lee
OT, but amusing: This lends a whole new slant to red states.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Safire’s “non-political” language column was not about celebrating the richness of English and the inventiveness of its users—it was intended as a form of gatekeeping to establish that only people with the mastery and willingness to use the peculiarly etiolated version of “correct” grammar endorsed by Safire’s circle deserved to be heard.
Agree about pundit as an evolutionary dead end, but I have to disagree with this. Safire’s “On Language” column did occasionally contain grammatical prescriptions, but mostly it was about popular words or phrases–especially as they became “hot” in political discourse–and where they came from, e.g., “location, location, location,”, “tranche” and a phrase we were discussing here a day or two ago, “straw man.”
Catsy
I realize that this is entirely superficial and apropos of nothing, but being as I do not watch reality shows or keep up with anything thematically related to them, I was in a state of total confusion the first time someone turned on Keeping up with the Kardashians when I was in the room. I kept wondering, “why the hell do they keep talking about Cardassians on this moronic show?”
The Moar You Know
@SGEW: Bottom line is that he kept a lot of people safe. The few rigging accidents I’m aware of have, at best, destroyed valuable/irreplaceable equipment, and at worst have killed a fair number of people. Always like to read about a guy who always got it right. It’s really hard to find guys like that in any trade, but especially the music industry.
I tip my hat to our departed rigger.
Don
Surviving the World tackles punditry.
maye
Seanly: The Kardashian girls are half Armenian.
and speaking of the Lakers,
John Cole, et. al.: Re the defenders of Polanski — where did you stand on the defense of Kobe Bryant after he raped that girl in Colorado?
Just asking. . .
Brachiator
@Seanly:
.
To be fair, a person’s body is a person’s body.
Ass for ancestry and family background,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian
Tax Analyst
Odom had a much better season than Safire. Even with career-long bouts of inconsistency he is arguably more valuable in his enterprise than Safire was in his.
Also, Odom just signed a multi-year contract for about $33 million dollars and got married to a professional celebrity. On the other hand, Safire just died. That gives Odom, his contract and his marriage a lot more shelf life than Safire’s dead carcass and almost every and anything he ever wrote.
@ 101 Seanly – “Kardashian” is an Armenian name.
@ 106 Catsy – I hadn’t thought about the “Cardassians”. Perhaps what we need is for Patrick Stewart to weigh in on this topic.
Make it so.
Brachiator
@maye:
The cases aren’t really comparable, are they? And out of all of the controversial sexual assault cases, why did you pull this one out of your ass? Do you have a thing for Kobe Bryant?
General Winfield Stuck
@maye:
Maybe you should re-read Cole’s post @John Cole: and this time turn on your snark/spoof detector, and maybe even think a little before popping off. Just asking…
Brachiator
@Tax Analyst:
This reminds me of a famous Babe Ruth anecdote.
The Cardassians were regularly featured on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The show also had a character named Odo. Don’t think he played basketball, though.
slippy
@Penfold: Safire falls into a comfortable old chair of traditionalism. He beat people over the head with his classist erudition, but he was in no way shape or form a “master” of the English language. He was a master of lording it over people. To suggest that he might have taught anyone anything is ludicrous. I read one or two of his worthless columns after I learned that he had died. Yep. The world won’t miss him much at all. Just another blowhard. Being a blowhard with a lot of letters after your name is still a blowhard.
Steeplejack
@slippy:
Being a blowhard with a lot of letters after your name is still a blowhard.
What are you even talking about? Safire was a high school graduate and a college dropout.
I hate to be in the position of defending Safire. Politically he was an unregenerate Nixonian, and he gained whatever reputation he had as a pundit more by longevity than any brilliance. But his language columns were by and large interesting, and, ZOMG, I for one did learn some things from them. To write him off so completely and with such snark, as some have done here lately, is overkill. Save the vitriol for Glenn Beck. There is someone who really is a worthless blowhard.