I think I've already used the phrase "mindbogglingly stupid" to describe a Safire column, and I hate repeating myself, so let me ask him one simple question: if it's a question of English phonology, how come we say inroads instead of irroads and unresolved instead of urresolved? Answer: because it's not a question of English phonology, as he could have found out by looking at a dictionary, any dictionary. Let's try irrational. What does Merriam-Webster's Collegiate say? Why, it says "Middle English, from Latin irrationalis, from in- + rationalis rational." So we're talking about Latin phonology.