Going back to my infancy as a G-list pundit – at KSTP in 1986, when I started my first conservative talk show – I was keenly aware that going on the air without a goal was a little like trying to push a hose up a hill.

My goal was to be what Hugh Hewitt would later call a “center-right” conservative; someone who was conservative on the first principles of limited government, prosperity and security, and basically a small-l libertarian (but not libertine) and minimalist on other issues.

In other words, I remember thinking back in 1986, to be more or less like William Safire.

Safire died over the weekend of pancreatic cancer.

But up ’til then?  What a run!

There may be many sides in a genteel debate, but in the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: there was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”He was a college dropout and proud of it, a public relations go-getter who set up the famous Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” in Moscow, and a White House wordsmith in the tumultuous era of war in Vietnam, Nixon’s visit to China and the gathering storm of the Watergate scandal, which drove the president from office.

Then, from 1973 to 2005, Mr. Safire wrote his twice weekly “Essay” for the Op-Ed Page of The Times, a forceful conservative voice in the liberal chorus. Unlike most Washington columnists who offer judgments with Olympian detachment, Mr. Safire was a pugnacious contrarian who did much of his own reporting, called people liars in print and laced his opinions with outrageous wordplay.

He’s a guy who’s bounced back a few times – itself an inspiration in these times:

Critics initially dismissed him as an apologist for the disgraced Nixon coterie. But he won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and for 32 years tenaciously attacked and defended foreign and domestic policies, and the foibles, of seven administrations. Along the way, he incurred enmity and admiration, and made a lot of powerful people squirm.

Rest in peace, William Safire.