NEWS
By MIKE ROYKO | January 24, 1994
Minutes after Bobby Inman backed out as the next secretary fTC of defense because New York Times columnist William Safire was mean to him, I called 10 acquaintances and did a fast poll.I picked these 10 people because none are in the news business, politics or work for government. They are all reasonably well-educated and informed but are not news junkies. All are Midwesterners.To each, I put the same question: "Did you read what Bill Safire wrote about Bobby Inman?"Here are the results of that quickie poll.
NEWS
February 18, 1996
Since the preposterous plot is not meant to be taken seriously, even by the characters who struggle in its contradictory meshes, Safire concentrates his considerable energies on stuffing their mouths with knowing references to journalism, publishing, high finance, the CIA and KGB ... One hinge of his plot involves the workings of presidential covert-action findings, no very mysterious process, but one that Safire is determined to get wrong ... His ignorance...
NEWS
By JACK GERMOND & JULES WITCOVER | January 21, 1994
WASHINGTON -- Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the surprise withdrawal of Bobby Ray Inman as President Clinton's nominee to run the Pentagon was the apparent willingness of this veteran of official Washington to believe that a conspiracy existed between the Republican leader of the Senate and a newspaper columnist to do him in.The allegation, denied by both of the supposed conspirators, Sen. Bob Dole and William Safire of the New York Times, was so...
FEATURES
By Mike Littwin | January 15, 1996
IT PLAYS OUT like a country-western song.Somebody calls your wife a liar. You threaten to punch the guy in the mouth. Nobody calls in the cops because you're president of the United States, and besides, you didn't bring along boxing gloves in case some fool might want to fight.You're Bill Clinton, and this is a good day.You get to be Trumanesque. To those critics who say you're short on backbone, you get to show some spine. Some testosterone, too.In the fight -- no punches thrown -- between you and the big-time, New York Times columnist, you're the clear winner.
NEWS
March 16, 1995
FROM THE "To err is human" file comes this: A William Safire column on belated moves to honor former Maryland governor and U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew had a noticeable error when it was published on the op/ed page of Monday's New York Times.Mr. Safire, who often comments on others' flubs in his language dTC column in the Times, referred to Maryland's Democratic governor Parris Glendening as a Republican. In fact, Mr. Safire, a former Nixon White House speech writer, seemed to infer that it took a Republican governor to get Mr. Agnew's portrait hung in the State House along with previous governors, "something the last two Democrats refused to do," he wrote.
NEWS
By Tom Baxter | January 21, 1994
OFFICIAL Washington has always had an edgy relationship with the media that covers it. Lately, though, things have taken a strange turn.The journalists and politicians who live along the Potomac have been saying nasty things about each other since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Always before, however, there has been an unspoken understanding that neither group could get along without the other.In modern times, this relationship has taken on aspects of a game both sides know how to play, like the old cartoon about the sheepdog and the wolf who fight all day and get along famously after hours.