Safire Retires
NY Times | Glad to see the crazy bastard gone
Here's why I'm outta here: In an interview 50 years before, the aging adman Bruce Barton told me something like Watson's advice about the need to keep trying something new, which I punched up into "When you're through changing, you're through." He gladly adopted the aphorism, which I've been attributing to him ever since.

Ok, ok, I know that my tag line may sound like a bit of grave dancing. Still, Safire's opeds over the past five years have gotten increasingly crazy and disconnected from the news. Highlights include insisting no less than five times that WMD had already been found in Iraq, attacking Rummy for not pushing the war enough, etc. Do like the quote, and am thrilled that he's not giving up the language column.