This whole piece is ugly, sad and really speaks ill of Slate. Bob Novak dies, and Slate runs a hatchet job on him within days. Now Safire gets the same treatment.

But more than being of questionable timing and motive, the critique is stupefyingly petty. So a columnist goes back and forth between reporting factual information and giving his opinion of it. Silly me -- I thought that was the whole point of an opinion column. I guess the seamless blending of fact and opinion is supposed to be the sole province of the Times' newsroom. The whole "keeper" issue is even sillier. We're supposed to think Safire is somehow mendacious because of a disagreement over the extent of a journalistic term of art?

This may be the worst thing I've ever read on Slate.