RIP William Ruckelshaus

Watergate figure William Ruckelshaus dead at 87 - CNNPolitics

A pretty unfair headline. He was also the first administrator of the EPA and served four different Presidents, R and D - and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by a fifth.

I wish their were more true public servants like him around these days, who focused on the work and not the politics.

 

Totally agree on the headline. RIP, sir.

 

Yeah. It makes it sound like some c-list Nixon crony passed away.

 

Dan, you're right. It's not fair. But we've all read, and many of us have written, many obits, and we know that the big news hook goes in the head and the first sentence. It's how it works. Monica Lewinsky could win the Nobel Prize for medicine and you KNOW what the head in her obit will say.

 

Ruckelshaus, when White House chief of staff Alexander Haig asked him to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox:

"C'mon, Al, what're you gonna do, get a tank down here and blow me out of my office? I can't do this."

 

Nixon to Ruckelshaus: "I would like you to do us a favor though." October 1973

 

From what I've heard about Haig, I wouldn't have given him any ideas. His sarcasm radar probably didn't work too well.