William Safire: 1929-2009

In this file photo, President Bush fruitlessly searches William Safire’s back for an outlet of some kind so he can “jack in and steal somma them brain smarts.”

William Safire, the cunning Republican linguist who pissed off a generation of liberals by providing Spiro Agnew with the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativity,” has died at the inscrutable age of 79. ‘Twas pancreatic cancer that felled the man loved by language fans and Conservatives the world over. Schlock movie buffs probably also remember Safire’s name popping up at the end of Dean Cameron’s hilarious rap segment in the 1990 film classic Rockula (see below).

I’d like to propose the theory right now that William Safire only clung to life in recent years because he sensed Roman Polanski’s impending arrest and yearned to see it first hand. Thus, he kept the Grim Reaper at bay, distracting him with various word origins and crossword puzzles. When Polanski was cuffed in Switzerland earlier today, William Safire finally let go, leaping up into the Reaper’s arms and saying, “Take me home, Daddy!” in a cute little girl voice.

Remember, this is just a theory, not an eye-witness report.

I’m spillin’ a little of my nitrous on the sidewalk for you this evening, William, my dead writin’ homey. You kept it real, you kept it interesting, your eminence and constancy shall be canonized in the annals of history perpetually.

Now, feast on the hottest freestyle ever written from the perspective of a horny (Republican?) teenage vampire:

I bet William F. Buckley was never name-checked in a rap song, that bitch-ass trick mark bitch.