Safire's latest list of slang
posted by srboisvert on Dec 3, 2004 - 91 comments

William Safire on "the izzle": "And now, in the pages of The New York Times, there it is — a word modified with the ubiquitous izzle. Some clever Times copy editor, for a June article about Chrysler's new 300C sedan, created the headline, "Fo' Shizzle, That Big Bad Chrysler Really Does Sizzle". So now that the gray lady herself has been izzled from the inside, is it time for everyone to wish one last fond farewizzle and shed the shizzle? (MTV interview mentioned in the article is here.)
posted by taz on Sep 21, 2004 - 33 comments

Conservative acts like conservative Columnist William Safire (in the NYT, though mirrored in the link for your convenience) takes on corporate consolidation of media and culture: The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many. Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of power - political, corporate, media, cultural - should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy. (search for info. about your hometown media). Safire, in fighting against deregulation alongside "the left", has some strange bedfellows. Obviously, terms like "left" and "right" are less than perfectly useful, but is this the beginning a larger shift? 20 years from now, will libertarians and gun-owners still be de facto Republicans, and if not, will they simply cease to be a block, or find comfort elsewhere on the political spectrum?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on May 24, 2003 - 26 comments

Goodness Gracious! What A Lot Of Ways Of Not Saying "God"! Jeez may be MetaFilter's genteel exclamation of choice, but crusty and trusty old William Safire of the New York Times[registration required]has the gracious goods on other ways of not(quite)invoking the name of the Lord in vain; whilst proving en route that Donald Rumsfeld isn't, after all, the wilting sissy or pseudo-Southern belle we all thought him to be...
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 15, 2002 - 20 comments

Even Safire is getting sick of Bush in today's NY Times op-ed piece writing about the bogus executive privilege order he signed re: FBI missteps in Boston: "Why is Bush, so early in his term and with little to hide, going down this road to upset our system of checks and balances?...It's another mistake that will come home to haunt the Bush presidency." (nytimes.com Member ID: metafi, password: metafi) And with Lieberman and Levin opening up the Enron investigation ("Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the full committee's chairman, promised Wednesday `a search for the truth, not a witch hunt.' But he did not rule out an examination of Enron's relationships with the Bush administration.") does anyone not think the Dems are getting fired up for the fall elections, war or no war?
posted by willrich on Jan 3, 2002 - 26 comments

yesterday the times printed an op-ed by clinton in which he made a case for his controversial pardons. [mefi partisans went at it] -- today the times editorial attacks that very piece AND prints a safire op-ed attacking it as well.
posted by palegirl on Feb 19, 2001 - 13 comments

William Safire in the NY Times: "...to attribute racism to Ashcroft, who appointed more black judges than any Missouri governor and whose wife is revered for her years of teaching at mostly black Howard University, is to admit the bankruptcy of his opposition."
posted by ericost on Jan 18, 2001 - 38 comments