[BluesDuke]

Agnew's "nattering nobobs of negativism" should have made the list, as it is such an appropriate description of so much that is on it.

The speech did make the list - at number 50. The compiler didn't use the famous phrase as its title and, anyway, Agnew would not have even thought of the phrase had it not been provided by Nixon White House speechwriter William Safire, who gave the alliteration-addicted vice president a choice between "the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" and "the nattering nabobs of negativism" - to which Agnew, in Safire's recollection (he tells the story in both Before The Fall and in a scathing review of Agnew's grotesquery The Canfield Decision), said, "What the hell - let's go with both!" (Safire concluded his skewering of Agnew's novel, in fact, by writing, "Now, he has become that which we used to deride so enthusiastically: a nattering nabob of negativism.")

[gusopol3]

thanks-- I admit I was too lazy to look for it. While you bring up speech-writers, they (not you) follow the usual liberal propaganda of ascribing Reagan's words to a speechwriter, while not giving Teddy Sorenson the well-deserved credit for # 2.