Regardless of what you thought about his politics, Safire was one the great op-ed columnists for over 30 years. Political discourse and the civil media lost a little yesterday.
From the link:
William Safire, a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and aPulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times who also wrote novels, books on politics and a Malaprop’s treasury of articles on language, died at a hospice in Rockville, Md., on Sunday. He was 79.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Martin Tolchin, a friend of the family.
There may be many sides in a genteel debate, but in the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
David Kirkpatrick 
I have been surprised by the lack of civil political discourse in some of the threaded discussions in the blogs. I suspect it might reflect the sort of people we are (i.e., in American society). Here is the post if you are interested: http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/are-the-american-people-really-like-mr-smith/
Comment by euandus — November 3, 2009 @ 10:43 am