Alexander Haig

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/21/2010 10:00 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>The NY Times obit ---
>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/politics/21haig.html

'... Reagan's aide Lyn Nofziger once said, that "the third paragraph
of his obit" would detail his conduct in the hours after President
Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.'  [My memory is well down the
road to deterioration -- I had placed this instead with Nixon's abdication!]

I congratulationize Tim Weiner for trueing that predict.  The third
paragraph of his obituary begins:

'That day, Secretary of State Haig wrongly declared himself the
acting president. "The helm is right here," he told members of the
Reagan cabinet in the White House Situation Room, "and that means
right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice
president gets here."'

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org