Free Republic

On the November 29 edition of CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, CNN correspondent Mary Snow reported that New York Times columnist William Safire, who is retiring in January 2005, "is praised not just for his columns, but for his journalism." Citing a 1996 column as one of three examples of Safire's praiseworthy "journalism," Snow stated: "In the Clinton years, he once called Hillary Clinton a congenital liar for her role in the Whitewater scandal." But Safire's January 1996 column calling Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar" was just one example of the numerous false accusations Safire leveled against Bill and Hillary Clinton....

lmost as soon as William Safire announced he was retiring after 31 years as the right-wing uncle at the Times’ op-ed dinner table, conservatives began plotting to retain his perch. “I’ve gotten much advice from people who aren’t columnists about who would be good,” says editorial-page editor Gail Collins. Emboldened by the postelection morals mandate, conservatives seem to be hoping that they can push the page deep into this territory, too: Family-values columnist Cal Thomas, who’s publicly disparaged the Times, said, “It would be a wonderful thing if Sulzberger reached out and said, ‘We get it.’ ” But don’t count...

ashington — Thanks to Claudia Rosett, an enterprising reporter writing in The New York Sun, the world now knows that some information put out by Secretary General Kofi Annan about his son's involvement with a Swiss inspection company at the heart of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is untrue. At a luncheon at "21" in New York this summer, Annan came over to me to complain politely that my series suggesting U.N. maladministration was unfair. When I asked about the consultant fee paid to his son Kojo that may have influenced the award of a U.N. contract to Cotecna Inspection, the...

Thanks to Claudia Rosett, an enterprising reporter writing in The New York Sun, the world now knows that some information put out by Secretary General Kofi Annan about his son's involvement with a Swiss inspection company at the heart of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is untrue. At a luncheon at "21" in New York this summer, Annan came over to me to complain politely that my series suggesting U.N. maladministration was unfair. When I asked about the consultant fee paid to his son Kojo that may have influenced the award of a U.N. contract to Cotecna Inspection, the secretary general...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Washington — The sore-loser set has been complaining that the president has banished healthy internal dissent. Darryl Zanuck's classic line to quavering executives has been evoked, "Don't say yes until I finish talking!" But wait: that was before a minority of a hundred or so members of Congress, basing their stand on the testimony of the nation's five most senior military officers, refused to say yes to the private lobbying juggernaut set up by the disbanded 9/11 commission. This group had already brought the media, the Congressional leadership and finally the president to their knees. The principled refusal...

<p>With the announcement of William Safire's retirement, the New York Times faces an important choice: Will Safire be replaced with a center-right scribbler, or will the Times be content to let David Brooks carry the entire burden of representing non-liberal America?</p>

William Safire, whose political commentary column has appeared on the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times for more than 30 years, is stepping down, The Times said today. The newspaper said in a statement that Mr. Safire would make his final appearance as an Op-Ed columnist on Jan. 24, 2005. "The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, said in the statement. "Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical...

William Safire will publish his final column as a New York Times Op-Ed columnist on January 24, 2005. Arthur Sulzberger Jr, publisher of The New York Times, said, "The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable. Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world. Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point. His writing is delightful, informed and engaging. So,...

Peace has better chance without Arafat By William Safire WASHINGTON — The only lifelong terrorist to win a Nobel Peace Prize left this sphere after his well-heeled wife — for years unwilling to share his privations in Ramallah — screamed at Palestinian leaders on Al-Jazeera television that "they're trying to bury (him) alive!" More likely, they were trying to learn in what secret accounts he buried millions of dollars. Israelis should remember Arafat's one "good deed": Four years ago, a soon-to-be ousted Israeli prime minister and a Nobel-hungry U.S. president made the Palestinian Authority an incredibly generous and dangerous offer:...

The Dangers of Lopsidedness By WILLIAM SAFIRE Nobody "blew" it. Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns successfully turned on and turned out their troops, resulting in the kind of massive vote - the highest percentage of eligible voters taking part since 1968, also a wartime election - that should make America proud. Fierce partisanship, rooted in policy disagreement and driven by 2000's "we wuz robbed" resentment, left the former voter apathy dead. This year's hot competition served a great purpose in putting millions more selves in self-government. But there is a rhythm to politics - a time to divide and...

Washington — Nobody "blew" it. Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns successfully turned on and turned out their troops, resulting in the kind of massive vote - the highest percentage of eligible voters taking part since 1968, also a wartime election - that should make America proud. Fierce partisanship, rooted in policy disagreement and driven by 2000's "we wuz robbed" resentment, left the former voter apathy dead. This year's hot competition served a great purpose in putting millions more selves in self-government. But there is a rhythm to politics - a time to divide and a time to unite. Kerry's...

Washington The big news in Osama bin Laden's message to American voters was not his intercession in our election; that clumsy ploy was not as successful as his pre-election panicking of Spain's voters. Nor was the news his delight in the "pet goat" sequence in Michael Moore's Bush-bashing film, and his admonition that "Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you," echoing the central Kerry theme. Nor was it the frustrating fact that our Global Enemy No. 1 is alive and well and still at large. The unremarked news is that this mass murderer evidently seeks a...

Arab and Jewish Votes By WILLIAM SAFIRE Published: October 25, 2004 Washington — You have to give credit to Arab-Americans, and to the overlapping category of American Muslims, for knowing what side they are on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and for voting for those they believe would address their concerns. Four years ago, they voted almost two to one for George W. Bush, thinking he would act like his father. Today, according to the Zogby poll, American Muslim voters are going 10 to 1 in the opposite political direction - for John Kerry over Bush. Not only do they...

ctober 18, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST The Lowest Blow By WILLIAM SAFIRE ashington The memoir about the Kerry-Edwards campaign that will be the best seller will reveal the debate rehearsal aimed at focusing national attention on the fact that Vice President Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian. That this twice-delivered low blow was deliberate is indisputable. The first shot was taken by John Edwards, seizing a moderator's opening to smarmily compliment the Cheneys for loving their openly gay daughter, Mary. The vice president thanked him and yielded the remaining 80 seconds of his time; obviously it was not a...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Washington — The memoir about the Kerry-Edwards campaign that will be the best seller will reveal the debate rehearsal aimed at focusing national attention on the fact that Vice President Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian. That this twice-delivered low blow was deliberate is indisputable. The first shot was taken by John Edwards, seizing a moderator's opening to smarmily compliment the Cheneys for loving their openly gay daughter, Mary. The vice president thanked him and yielded the remaining 80 seconds of his time; obviously it was not a diversion he was willing to prolong. Until that...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Washington When pro-Kerry commentators solemnly pronounce Debate Round 2 to have been "a draw" - you know George Bush won that round. The president won because he went in with a theme spoken by the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, just before his 1946 rematch victory over the lighter, faster Billy Conn: "He can run, but he can't hide." (The Brown Bomber caught up with Conn in the eighth round of that first TV spectacular.) Bush's debate plan was to keep boring in on the Kerry record: flip-flopping this year on the war, but all too consistently liberal for...

OP-ED COLUMNIST WASHINGTON — Let's not be taken in when defeatists try to pooh-pooh the promise of this week's election in Afghanistan. Already the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - more insecure and uncooperative than usual - has announced that it will refuse to declare this coming election to be free and fair. European nit-picking about "irregularities" will be fierce from high-minded bureaucrats who do not realize that the most irregular thing in that part of the world is anything approximating a free election. Too much world media coverage will focus on pictures of violence at polling places,...

As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry's edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush. First, on war-fighting in Iraq: Hard-liners criticized the Bush decision this spring not to send U.S. troops in to crush Sunni resistance in the Baathist stronghold in Falluja. Our forces wanted to fight to win but soft-liners in Washington worried about the effect of heavier civilian casualties on the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and of U.S. troop losses on Americans. Last week in...

OP-ED COLUMNIST The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before. Three decades ago, not long after I left the Nixon administration to join The New York Times, I criticized the posturing of the special prosecutor Leon Jaworski - then the darling of the press corps. Al Haig, the White House chief of staff at the time, collared me at a party to pass along a message about Jaworski's triggering a grand-jury subpoena: "Leon says to tell you to get off his back or else."...

Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. --- U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343. That was no mere "dirty trick"; it could be a violation of the U.S. criminal code. If the artifice had not been revealed by sharp-eyed bloggers, a national election could have been swung by a blatant falsehood. Who...