Safire passing highlights a passing of the torch in Conservative commentary. It used to be defined by the likes of Safire, William F Buckley and George Will. While you may not have agreed with what they were saying, you respected the messenger.
Now Conservative commentary is defined by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Volume substitutes for content and end results are more important than factual results.
The dumbing down of the Conservative movement
Compared to Randy Rhodes, Jerry Springer, Al Franken and George Noory on the left, I think the left has mastered the dumbing down progress.
We saw it last Nov when the stupid asses, oops, masses, voted for this train wreck.