William Safire, RIP

I read William Safire's Times columns religiously for many years and, while I very much enjoyed his writing and the basic tenor of his arguments, it seemed that over-and-over again he ended up being wrong. His most blatantly off-base argument was his accusing General Schwartzkopf of being a "new McClellan" for his apparent reluctance to take on Saddam in 1990. That was a few short months before the general orchestrated one of the most lopsided victories in the history of warfare. A bit later, just a few weeks before the fireworks would begin, he actually offered as a choice in his annual "Office Pool" predictions that Schwartzkopf would run as a Democrat, McClellan-like, against Bush. But it really wasn't his fault - he was after all an original neocon, and neocons are pretty much doomed to being wrong.