R.I.P Lyn Nofziger
March 27th, 2006 at 9:49 pm by SmantixA great American and a brilliant strategist passed today. There will be little fanfare and fewer memorials but his impact was felt then, remains today and resonates in tomorrow.
Conservative columnist George F. Will once described the nonconformist, cigar-chomping Nofziger, as “Sancho Panza” to Reagan’s Don Quixote.
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But the Nofziger wit and camaraderie did not disguise the fact that he was a bare-knuckled political partisan.During his year in the Reagan White House, he saw one of his principal responsibilities as rooting Democrats out of the federal government and replacing them with Republican loyalists.
Earlier, he’d served on the Republican National Committee and as an aide to President Nixon. According to John Dean, Nofziger helped Nixon put together his infamous White House “enemies list.”
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“Every time we appoint someone they don’t agree with to a job, they feel the victory trickling away.”
“Lyn is a character straight out of Damon Runyon. He dresses like the newsman he once was—poorly. Buttoning a shirt at the neck is obviously against his religion. He convened a meeting once by tossing his sports jacket in the general direction of a chair. When it sailed past, Lyn left it crumpled on the floor for the next two hours. His humor is irrepressible,and his puns are the stuff of legend. He’s utterly irreverent and totally incorrigible,but his puckish wit and mild manner mask a steel-trap mind and first-rate political skills. Lyn makes the best friend in all the world–and absolutely the worst enemy.”
-Ed Rollins, “Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms”, 1996
If there’s a heaven, life in hell just got a little worse for the devil. He’s given the devils on earth enough hell for one lifetime.
March 27th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
The URI is an homage. Obviously Lyn’s. Read it.
He once held a party on groundhog day and decorated the place with pieces of hanging sausage. Get it? Ground Hog. Ha. What a funny punster.
The best cashews I ever ate were a gift just this last Christmas, he turned me on to Moose Munch, and there was this Washington State University cheese the Christmas before that was TO DIE for! Most unusual gift-giver, but awesome in retrospect.
RIP Lyn. The cane has a prominent place in our home.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:02 am
Reagan Spokesman Lyn Nofziger Dead at 81…
Franklyn ‘Lyn’ Nofziger, the rumpled and irreverent conservative who served President Reagan as pres…
March 28th, 2006 at 8:25 am
I’d first heard of him when I started reading The Federalist. There were always quotes, puns, poems and anecdotes attributed to him and any number of his pseudonyms.
In a world full of fakes, it was great to see someone so entertainingly at home with himself. I perused through a wealth of his “musings” on his own site last night. Hopefully someone will maintain it for a while as a memorial for someone unsung once too often.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Well said. He and John Sears were the brains behind Reagan’s rise to power.
Both were difficult people to be around but Sears saw himself as the puppetmaster and Reagan as the puppet. Both Ronnie and Nancy disabused him of that notion right quick.
March 28th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Lyn Nofziger died too…
Not sure how I missed this one, between Buck Owens over the weekend and Casper Weinberger today, Reagan political advisor and politics is a blood sport player Lyn Nofziger died. Nofziger was a guy that only saw one way to win and that is by crushing yo…