William Safire

William Safire was a a political columnist for the New York Times from 1973 until late January, 2005. He also has a sideline in writings on the use of language. Prior to joining the New York Times he was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon.

Safire's columns have been against Clinton while he was President, strongly supportive of Israeli government policy and critical of the Homeland Security Act.

In 1990, Alexander Cockburn said, in this article, that "William Safire is the most strident journalistic exponent in the United States of the positions associated with General Ariel Sharon. (His only rival in rabid utterance on these matters is another New York Times commentator, A. M. Rosenthal). For Safire, any negotiation, with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is anathema. Any indication by the U.S. government that Israel might be anything less than faultless is furiously denounced".

More recently, in this article, Safire has been described by Uri Avnery as "a man hypnotized by Sharon".