ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 31, 2003

WASHINGTON - - They don’t call it the fog of war for nothing.

That fog usually exists because we get so little information from the battlefield during a war.

This time, however, the fog exists because we are getting so much conflicting information.

The U.S. invasion plan for Iraq is either on schedule or bogged down.

Our military planners either correctly estimated Iraqi military resistance or seriously underestimated it.

We either overestimated the desire of ordinary Iraqis to free themselves from Saddam Hussein or we were properly realistic.

We never really believed that the air attacks on Baghdad would topple Saddam’s regime or that is exactly what we believed.

The refusal of Turkey to allow U.S. ground troops to base on and attack Iraq from Turkish soil was either a serious blow to our military plans or inconsequential.

You don’t have to pose questions, however, to enmesh yourself in the fog of this war. Sometimes the fog is to be found in the answers:

“The enemy we're fighting against is different from the one we'd war-gamed against,” Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the ground war in Iraq told The New York Times and The Washington Post last week. "We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight."

But Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks shot back at a briefing at U.S. Central Command in Qatar: "No one can ever predict how a battle will unfold. We remain confident that we have a good grip on what's going on here and we're proceeding."

(Wallace seriously outranks Brooks, by the way. A lieutenant general has three stars and a brigadier general has but one.)

Brooks may truly believe that “no one can ever predict how a battle will unfold,” but that belief is hardly universal. Several top U.S. officials made some very sunny predictions before this war began. Salon, a web magazine, has assembled some of them.

The chief one comes from Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on March 16: "The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that. My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

That still could happen and I hope it does, but it seems our planners underestimated the power of nationalism even under brutal dictators.

And then there was Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who said in a PBS interview July 11, 2002: “Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991. But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.”

Saddam’s military has had more than just a first whiff of gunpowder and, as I write this, has not collapsed. Richard Perle, on the other hand, resigned his post this week.

Make no mistake, we will win this war. But the cost, in both dollars and lives, may be far higher than we estimated in those crystal clear days before the war began and the fog descended.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 26, 2003

WASHINGTON - - “In war,” Torie Clarke, the Pentagon spokesperson said the other day, “bad things happen and people die.”

That statement is stark, simple and true.

But our media don’t want you to believe it.

They want you to believe that war is about spectacular explosions over Baghdad, video-game pictures of tanks being blown up, and celebrities like David Bloom riding in that M-88 tank recovery vehicle.

I don’t blame Bloom for the latter. He is just doing his job. TV is a celebrity-creating medium and if you get on TV a lot, you become a celebrity.

But I think a lot of us were hoping that embedding journalists with the troops might lead to more information on and perspective from ordinary soldiers. We are getting very little of that. Instead, we are getting stars.

TV has high-priced talent out in the field and they are determined to show us that high-priced talent. Every chance they get.

What TV doesn’t want to show us is dead bodies, however.

I have covered only two shooting wars, my stay each time was brief, but I did manage to learn one thing: War is about dead bodies.

When you get right down to it, war is not about ex-generals on TV in front of fancy maps or current generals standing behind lecterns and giving progress reports.

War is about death. War is about people getting killed.

But TV wants to sanitize this war, at least when it comes to the American dead. It doesn’t want to show us pictures of that.

ABC, which showed pictures of two dead Iraqi soldiers, drew the line at showing pictures of dead U.S. soldiers.

“Anytime you show dead bodies , it is simply disrespectful, in my opinion,” said Charlie Gibson, the host of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” (I guess Iraqi corpses don’t deserve such respect.)

"I feel we do have an obligation to remind people in the most graphic way that war is a dreadful thing," replied “Nightline's” Ted Koppel in disagreement.

I agree with Koppel and for an additional reason: Every one of our troops has volunteered. They all know that when they go into combat, they risk death. But still they volunteered.

That takes a lot of courage and it seems to me that to pretend death does not exist, is to dishonor the risk our troops are knowingly taking.

I am not saying TV should show identifiable pictures of the war dead before families have been notified. I am not saying that should show gruesome pictures for shock value.

But it is possible to be within the bounds of decency and still show reality. And we should show the reality of this war.

In war, bad things happen and people die, said Torie Clarke.

She is right and Americans should know that.

War is horrible and if we do not learn the horrors of war, see the horrors of war, feel the horrors of war, we really will begin to believe it is a video game.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 24, 2003

WASHINGTON - - The day after America went to war, a lanky college student in shirtsleeves strolled through a cool and damp Harvard Yard holding up a sign that summed up the feeling of many protesters around the country: “Shocked, But Not Awed.”

His sign was joined by others as the crowd grew to about 2,000: “Regime Change Begins at Home,” “The Only True Defense is Peace,” “Vive La France,” and a blast from the past: “Draft Beer, Not Boys.”

A lone counter-protester held up a sign reading, “I Support Our Troops.” Seeing it, Lexy Vanier, a 21-year-old junior from Pittsburgh, said: “I support our troops so much, I want to bring them home right now.”

As the TV networks filled the airwaves with an awesome display of high-tech explosions in Baghdad and pictures of firefights throughout Iraq, Americans struggled with an array of emotions and a range of reactions:

The Oscars did without the red carpet fashion display, Lisa Marie Presley postponed her publicity tour, Major League Baseball canceled a two-game series in Tokyo and the Washington D.C. Marathon was called off.

Most Democratic presidential wannabes either scaled back their campaign appearances or modified their tactics.

“I’m not going to back off my criticism of the president’s policy, but I’m certainly going to change the tone,” Howard Dean, the usually feisty former governor of Vermont, said. “There won’t be the kind of red meat remarks that you make in front of partisan Democratic audiences.”

At a hockey game in Montreal last Thursday, fans booed the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. America got its revenge, however: The New York Islanders beat the Canadiens 6-3.

Anti-war protests broke out across the nation and resulted in large numbers of arrests and paralyzed city centers. In San Francisco, more than 1,300 people were arrested Thursday, the highest number for one event in 22 years. In New York Times Square was shut down and 36 people were arrested. Traffic was snarled in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

There were protests at high schools and on college campuses in several states and at the University of Florida, Nancy Parkinson, 62, dusted off her peace-sign necklace from her anti-Vietnam war days. “I thought I would never have to wear it again,” she said.

In many cities, counter-demonstrators also showed up: In Cleveland, Dennise Linville, 33, held up a sign calling President Bush a hero. “I have children, and if this is not taken care of now, in five or 10 years they’re going to be the ones who will have to go in the military and take care of it,” she said.

Not all the passion was in the streets; some came from the floor of Congress.

Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said: “I wish American forces in Iraq every hope for rapid victory. They fight for love of freedom ­ - a love which is invincible. The world is better for their courage and dedication. Victory will be ours ­ - and all honor will be theirs. God bless them and may humanity honor their
sacrifice.”

Across the aisle, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd said: “Today I weep for my country. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance.”

According to three post-invasion polls, a majority of Americans quietly approved of President Bush’s actions. An ABC-Washington Post poll placed Bush’s approval rating at 67 percent; a CBS-New York Times poll said 62 percent of Americans thought the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq and a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans thought the nation took military action at the right time.

Influencing public reaction, perhaps, was the ability of President Bush to link Saddam Hussein to terrorism, especially of the Sept. 11 variety.

In his address to the nation from the Oval Office, Bush said: “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

But a group called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, which says it has 70 members representing 50 families of victims’ relatives, condemned the attack on Iraq as “illegal, immoral, and unjustified.”

“As family members of September 11th victims, we know how it feels to experience ‘shock and awe,’ and we do not want other innocent families to suffer the trauma and grief that we have endured,” the group said in a press release. “This war will not make America safer.”

Upon returning to the White House after a weekend in Camp David, President Bush stood on the White House lawn and told reporters: “It is evident that it’s going to take a while to achieve our objectives. I can assure the American people we’re making good progress and I can also assure them that this is just the beginning of a tough fight.”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 19, 2003

WASHINGTON - - While I agree with the joke that going to war without the French is like going duck hunting without your accordion, there are certain costs to going it essentially alone that we must face.

Let us quickly examine the bill from last time: In 1991 we sent 467,539 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf, sustained 760 casualties including 148 battlefield deaths, and spent $7.4 billion of our own money, plus $53.7 billion of our allies’ money to fight Saddam Hussein.

This time, Larry Lindsay, the chief White House economist, estimates that a scaled back force of only about 200,000 to 250,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq - - in other words about half of what we sent in 1991 - - will cost $100 billion to $200 billion in the first year with, presumably, the United States paying all of it.

That is merely the cost of waging war, however. The cost of waging peace may be considerably higher.

Deep in The New York Times last week there was an article that put the cost of reconstructing Iraq at $20 billion per year and requiring the long-term deployment of 75,000 to 200,000 American troops to prevent “widespread instability and violence.” And some think we will be there for 10 years or more.

The panel that came up with these figures is made up of senior American officials from Republican and Democratic administrations. It was chaired by James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense in the Nixon and Ford administrations and Thomas Pickering, ambassador to the UN under George H.W. Bush. Also on the panel were Gen. John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served in the Reagan administration.

This was not, in other words, some left-wing think tank chaired by Barbra Streisand and Sean Penn. These were people seeking a hard-headed assessment of the true cost of the aftermath of an Iraq war.

Consider first the upper number of U.S. troops needed for an occupation: 200,000. That roughly the same number, supplemented by 40,000 British troops, of our planned invasion force.

It seems to me that if it takes the same number of troops to maintain the peace in a country that it took to invade it, we are talking about a very difficult peace.

According to one panel member, James F. Dobbins, who served as special envoy to Afghanistan under President Bush, “even the lowest suggested requirement of 75,000 troops” to stabilize Iraq would mean “that every infantryman in the U.S. army” - - not just every infantryman in the occupying force, but every infantryman in the entire U.S. army - - “spend 6 months in Iraq out of every 18 to 24.”

If the higher number of 200,000 troops is needed to keep peace in Iraq, a figure endorsed by Gen. Eric K. Shinski, the Army Chief of Staff, then obviously the troops would have to spend more time and the cost of occupation would be considerably more than $20 billion per year.

This envisions, by the way, a largely peaceful occupation. It does not envision our troops becoming targets, say, of suicide bombers or of a guerilla war fought by troops loyal to Saddam, or, the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq declaring an independent Kurdistan, which would invite an invasion by Turkey and put the U.S. in a difficult position.

There has been some talk of renewing a military draft in this country to maintain this war. That will not, almost everybody agrees, be necessary. It may be necessary, however, to renew the draft to maintain the peace, especially if nuclear weapons production by North Korea and Iran puts an even greater burden on our volunteer military.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials said last week that the Bush administration is planning to pay the salaries of more than two million Iraqi civil servants to help re-build the country.

Consider: At a time in which states in this country are laying off civil servants and even some school teachers because of huge deficits, America is going to pay the salaries of two million Iraqis.

You can imagine how this would make you feel if you were recently laid off from a job and read that news. And you can imagine how some Democrats running for president intend to make use of that next fall.

I am not saying the price of removing Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction is not worth it. I am saying that worth it or not, we are going to pay it.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 17, 2002

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - - The Democrats have become a party of peace with a leadership that has voted for war.

All of the top-tier Democrats running for president voted for the resolution giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

Yet it is clear to me after attending speech after speech, rally after rally, fundraiser after fundraiser and cattle-call after cattle-call for several months that Democrats, or at least those Democrats who show up at political events, do not want this war.

The top tier - - John Kerry, Richard Gephardt, John Edwards and Joe Lieberman - - emphasize that they are not thrilled about going to war, either. But they think Saddam Hussein must be removed and by force of arms if necessary.

"I know what it is like to fight in a war when you lose legitimacy and consent," Kerry, a Vietnam vet, told delegates to the California Democratic State Convention here in Sacramento a few days ago. "And I believe the United States should never go to war without that legitimacy, without that consent."

That line got applause. Lines like that always get applause from Democrats these days.

And Kerry followed it with the line that always gets him the most applause: "The United States of America should never go to war because it wants to; we should to war because we have to!"

But this time, a man shouted from the crowd: "Then why did you vote for it?"

Good question. The fact is that many Democratic leaders voted for the war resolution last year because they either believed it was the right thing to do or the politically wise thing to do. They thought back then that their party was behind them. Now, they know better.

Take Sen. Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. Facing a re-election battle, he voted for the war resolution last year.

Today, however, safely re-elected, he says he was “fooled” and, sensing where Democrats now are on the issue, he rips the hide off Bush for going to war.

“If you’re a cowboy from West Texas, it’s okay to want to go in and kick Saddam Hussein’s butt,” Harkin told Democrats in Colorado a few days ago. “But if you’re President of a country that will commit hundreds of thousands of troops, spend billions of dollars, and likely need the help of the world to rebuild Iraq over the next 10 years, you had better explain why you’re going to unilaterally attack a country that is not an imminent threat to us.”

Harkin gets to have it both ways because his election is over. For the top Democrats running for president, however, their day of reckoning is still ahead.

John Edwards was soundly booed when he told California Democrats: "I believe Saddam Hussein is a serious threat. I believe he must be disarmed, including with the use of military force if necessary."

The operatives for the top tier always say the same thing: Don’t believe these boos, don’t believe these crowds. These people do not represent the party; they are activists, not average Democrats. True, but the activists are the ones who tend to control the primary process.

Sure, California activists are probably farther to the left than the party as a whole. But Democrats all over this country, activists or not, are very worried about this war.

And Howard Dean, running for president and ranked just below the top tier, hit the anti-war message hard in Sacramento. “What I want to know is what in the world are so many Democrats doing supporting the president's unilateral war in Iraq?" Dean shouted. The crowd cheered itself hoarse and Dean got a tremendous amount of TV and newspaper coverage.

Two top Democrats, Lieberman and Gephardt, didn’t even bother showing up in California. I guess they didn’t see the point in flying across the country to get booed.

Lieberman did send a videotape. It was booed.

Art Torres, California Democratic party chair, left little doubt where he stood when he opened the proceedings with these remarks: “As the presidential candidates speak, we must contemplate the future of those who must fight in a war many of us believe should not be fought at all. We should have consensus before we have a blood-spilling. Our responsibility is to be Democrats and not Republicans.”

By the end of the convention, the scorecard was clear: Those who voted in favor of the Iraq war got heckled or booed. Those who said they were against the war got cheered.

But the top tier is not worried: They think the war will be swift and victorious, that Saddam will be removed and that the liberated Iraqi people will happy to see us.

Then, they say privately, Howard Dean will have no issue to get cheers with and the Democrats will return to their senses.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 12, 2004

WASHINGTON - - Ten days after surgery to remove his cancerous prostate, John Kerry lounges on his back atop a small inflatable pillow on a sofa in the lower level of his elegant Georgetown home. Phone in hand, he makes call after call to political powerbrokers in Iowa.

The room is a comfortable jumble of stacked books, Russian boxes, vases of silk flowers, clocks, legal pads, framed photos, tennis rackets, and umbrellas. There are invaluable Dutch still-lifes on the red lacquered walls - - and there is supposed to be a portrait Rembrandt around here somewhere - - and Kerry's lucky leather jacket, the one he wore during Vietnam and into the hospital for his operation, is lying on the floor.

Kerry, in his fourth term as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is not asking for money on the phone this day. He is asking for something a lot more difficult: love and commitment. In a pinch, he will take like and commitment.

The likability of presidential candidates has been a big issue ever since 1987 when Maureen Dowd wrote on the front page of the New York Times: "Everywhere you look, the men who would be President are, as the poet Rod McKuen once put it, 'listening to the warm.' " Dowd quoted pollsters, consultants and academics about how Americans
now wanted likable presidents.

And in the second presidential debate in 1988, a questioner asked Michael Dukakis: "Now, Ronald Reagan has found his personal warmth to be a tremendous political asset. Do you think that a president has to be likable to be an effective leader?"

Dukakis replied that he was "reasonably likable." Voters may have reasonably disagreed. And while there are certainly other, and perhaps better, reasons to elect a president, likability continues to be a major concern with candidates and the media as the 2004 presidential race gears up.

Though likability is highly subjective, one could argue that from the election of
Ronald Reagan to the present, the more likable nominee has won the presidency each time.

"I remember the last Carter-Reagan debate in 1980; I was watching it with a
group of Democratic voters," Dick Gephardt says. "Now Reagan didn't have
a clue during that debate, but the people in my group said, 'We just liked him better.' "

Andrew Stern is the president of the Service Employees International Union,
the largest union in the nation. He has a lot of serious concerns when it comes
to choosing a presidential candidate and likability is one of them. "To become president in this era, you have to go to bar or bowling alley or a diner and have people feel you belong there," he says. "The question is: Can you hang out with them?"

When it comes to choosing which of the current Democratic candidates provides the best hang time, John Kerry's name does not immediately leap to mind.

In fact, the array of adjectives that have been attached to his name over the years by the media is truly chilling: "frozen fish," "arrogant jerk," "portentous," "stiff," "pompous," "off-putting" "pedantic," "perpetually phony," and, of course, the one that seems virtually welded to his name, the one he joked about at his press conference announcing his cancer surgery: "They told me they were going to take out my 'aloof' gland tomorrow," Kerry said. "So I'm feeling better."

That Kerry and his supporters disagree with all those descriptions is not the point. Both the candidate and the campaign know likability is an issue that Kerry must deal with, a hurdle he must surmount.

Which is why Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines lawyer, fundraiser and the chair of Kerry's Iowa campaign, is sitting in Kerry's Georgetown basement, dialing the phone and feeding him chance after chance to be likable where it counts.

"OK, this is going to be Matt McCoy," Crawford says, after putting the call on hold. "You met him. He believes the South Side activists may all break one way."

Des Moine's South Side is ethnic, union, and Democratic and State Sen. Matthew McCoy and his family are very, very big deals there.

Kerry, who can talk knowledgeably on everything from monetary policy to missile throw weights chooses a little more pedestrian issues for McCoy. "I hear you just ran the San Diego marathon" Kerry says. "What was your time?"

"4:16," McCoy says.

"That's great, great," Kerry says. "I remember my first Boston Marathon…it's
a great run. You've got to come to Boston and do it."

"I gotta qualify," McCoy says with a laugh.

"If you want to come and do it, I can get you a number if you want to run this
year," Kerry says.

"Fan-tas-tic!" McCoy says. "That is dynamite."

"I mean, seriously, tell me serious if you want to do it," Kerry says. "Cause I'll
get you one."

Who says John Kerry is a frozen fish? Not Matt McCoy! "I think Iowa is looking great for you," McCoy says.

"Can I get you committed?" Kerry asks.

"Absolutely!" McCoy says.

"That's fabulous," Kerry says. "That's enormous. I mean, that is really huge.
Thank you. You've made my day. Take care of yourself. And keep in training
cause we're going to get you into Boston!"

"You are going to be the next president, there is no doubt in my mind!" says
McCoy.

"All right buddy. Take care. Thanks," says Kerry.

The next day, McCoy will get a call from a Kerry staffer telling him that on
April 21 he is going to be running in the Boston Marathon.

"No, I could not have qualified on my own; I am a little too slow," McCoy later tells me. "This was Massachusetts-style politics."

McCoy also says he finds Kerry not the least bit aloof. "I find him warm and charming and likable and I think he will sell very well," McCoy says.

I call union president Stern and he tells me Kerry is passing his "hang out" test, but so are a number of others in the Democratic field.

"It's a decent crop this year," Stern says, "but I am holding out judgment. This is going to be hand-to-hand combat."

Combat for likability. Coming soon to a town near you.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 10, 2003

WASHINGTON - - Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, is one of the few presidential aspirants ever to be enhanced rather than diminished by a losing campaign.

His ability to attract independent voters, his willingness to attack the excesses of important elements of his own party including big business and the Religious Right, and his unscripted behavior marked a dramatic and refreshing departure from presidential politics as usual.

Though McCain remains a self-proclaimed conservative Republican, many of the Democrats now running for president have said they want to run a campaign like his.

Recently, I sat down with him McCain in his Senate office and asked him to reflect on his 2000 campaign and on the future.

Me: Many Democratic candidates for president say they want to campaign like John McCain or want to get a bus like John McCain. The bus has taken on magical properties.

McCain: (laughing) It was something in the exhaust.

Me: Many envy your ability to attract independent voters. How did you do it?

McCain: You have to convince people that you're the genuine article. I think people have been sort of disenchanted by the slick, media-oriented campaigns. "Joe Smith is working for you!" What does that mean?

Me: Would you say your campaign was high risk?

McCain: Oh, sure. Absolutely. First of all, I couldn't be any other way. Second, it would have to be given the odds that we faced.

Me: How did you tell your staff that you didn't want a lot of them in back of the bus with you and the press?

McCain: (laughing) There wasn't room for them! People may or may not like members of the media, but there are very few of them that cover presidential campaigns who are either stupid or boring.

Me: While the campaign was going on, you really looked like you were enjoying yourself.

McCain: I loved it all. Maybe this is our little secret, Roger, but on the campaign we didn’t always talk about issues and politics. Sometimes we talked about our favorite baseball players or our favorite movies.

Me: Would you say other candidates simply don't get how your campaign operated?

McCain: Yeah, I was with one candidate and we walked into this gymnasium for a town hall meeting and he said, "Don't worry, I've got all the questions planted." (laughs) That's not exactly what I had in mind.

Me: Why are so few candidates willing to take risks during campaigns?

McCain: They don’t want to make a big mistake. And with good reason: (Ed) Muskie crying, (George) Romney saying he was brainwashed. Quite often one small thing has wrecked a campaign.

Me: You've been quoted as saying Sen. John Kerry, who is now running for president, should be cautious about using his heroism in Vietnam. Why?

McCain: I think Americans want modesty, and if it appears as if you're trying to use some past accomplishment, particularly one in combat, to further your own political ambitions, it's a little dangerous because the whole reason for your serving in the military is to ensure the safety and future of others and not yourself. So, I think you have to be very careful.

Me: But you’ve become fairly close to Kerry because both of you have worked on the issue of POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War.

McCain: Yes, I have.

Me: Have you talked to other Democratic candidates?

McCain: Oh, yes. Joe (Lieberman) and I are very close. John Edwards and Dick Gephardt and I are very friendly. So there’s four of them I’m quite familiar with.

Me: Any advice for those running for president.?

McCain: Enjoy it. It’s most likely a once in a lifetime experience.

Me: Would you say President Bush is beatable in 2004?

McCain: I think it would be difficult to beat him, but if the economy is very poor all incumbents are vulnerable.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 5, 2003

WASHINGTON - - Not long ago, I spoke with Dick Gephardt, longtime congressman from Missouri, who is currently running for the 2004 Democrat presidential nomination. Here is part of that conversation.

Me: At what point did politics become a passion in your life?

Gephardt: When I was 11, I visited my mother's brother's family in Oklahoma for the summer. I spent almost all summer there. They lived on a farm, they had ponies and it was a wonderful thing to do as a kid.

But in August I sat in the house in Oklahoma and watched the full gavel-to-gavel Republican and Democratic conventions, Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower.

And my aunt, in fact, dubbed me the "Hot House Rose" because I sat in the house while everybody else was out playing with the horses or the ponies or whatever!

I don't know, I can't explain to you why I was interested in it. I have no idea of why it was interesting. I just . . . I loved it, I wanted to see all that. I wanted to see the speeches, I wanted to see the delegates vote and all that.

Then flash forward to Northwestern University, 1958-1962, Jack Kennedy's elected and I was just completely taken with him, with what he said about being in public service. Northwestern's a very Republican school, but I had Democratic friends, and they all said, going into business is not the deal, you need to be in politics. We need you to get into public service.

And Kennedy was a real influence on my life. I mean, just seeing somebody like that who was so well educated, so smart, so dedicated to public service, that really captured me.

And I ran for Student Body President, Northwestern and won. And so I got into politics that way. Then I went to Michigan Law School because I wanted to learn the law and I enjoyed practicing law, I practiced for 10 years. But from the minute I came back to St. Louis I knew I wanted to get into politics.

Me: You think you have a good chance of winning this time?

Gephardt: I've won a lot of elections; I've gotten my message across. I've basically sold myself, which is what you have to do and I think I can do that. I mean, I've got a staff here that's been with me forever. I've got a wife I've been married to for 36 years.

I have a lot of relationships with people in Iowa and New Hampshire that I didn't have 15 years ago (when he ran for president in 1988.) So, I think I can do this and I think people will like what I'm saying and what I'm doing.

I've had a number of people come up to me in the last year, half year, and a lot of them say to me, "You'd make a good President. I know you can do the job, you would make a terrific President. I just don't if you can win. But you'd make a good President."

And that gives me confidence cause I believe that. I mean, I believe I can do this job well. And I'm not being arrogant or bragging, I really know that I can do this.

Me: How do you convince them you can win?

Gephardt: I think that takes care of itself.

Me: By winning?

Gephardt: By winning. I mean, you know, the big thing in this whole primary thing is you just got to win. And I remember when Clinton was having his troubles, people were saying, "Oh, he can't win.” And they were writing him off. Well, he overcame that by winning. I think that’s the only way to do it. Hanging in there, That's the name of the game.

Me: The conventional wisdom, now carved in stone, is that you have to win Iowa. Do you have to win Iowa.

Gephardt: I have to do well in Iowa. I mean, there's a lot of hypotheticals you can come up with: What if somebody gets 32 percent and I get 31 and somebody else gets 30 percent? I think that's good enough.

Me: What forces a candidate to end his campaign? Money or the humiliation of losing?

Gephardt: Campaigns don’t end - - they run out of money. You’ve got to put gas in the car every day; you've got to pay the staff; you’ve got to get planes in the air, you’ve got to drive cars.

Me: Humiliation doesn’t bother candidates?

Gephardt: No, money bothers candidates. If you're running up debts that you can't pay, you'd better get out.

Me: But as long as you've got a dollar, you are going to keep running?

Gephardt: We’ll go ‘til we drop.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 3, 2003

WASHINGTON - - Not long ago, I sat down with Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. Here is some of that conversation.

Me: I was just wondering since this is the first time you've run for President, what you've learned so far.

Howard Dean: You know, if you listen carefully when you go to meet with people, you learn a lot. I learned what people thought about American corporations before Enron and Arthur Anderson from an Iowa audience who were terrified that they were going to lose their jobs. They believed that American corporations aren't American anymore. They know they pay well and they give good benefits but they also know that they can lose their jobs at any time.

Me: Corporate responsibility and corporate corruption have really faded as issues.

Dean: It will come back. People are still very worried about this issue and the President won't be able to keep Iraq on the front burner forever. And homeland security, I actually think the President is going to be vulnerable on.

Me: Yet you have praised him for his handling of terrorism.

Dean: Early on, but there have been some things, a couple of things recently that I think are huge problems. The first is that in Afghanistan the Americans are not policing the periphery - - we're allowing the war lords to do it. That's an enormous mistake. It's going to undo all the good things that happened in Afghanistan ultimately because if Afghanistan isn't a democratic nation Al Qaeda will move back in.

Secondly, I thought the President's handling of the Scud missiles in allowing them to go to Yemen was shocking and you know the notion that it's okay to let Scuds go into the most volatile region on earth is foolish.

Did we learn nothing from Afghanistan? That your friends may be your enemies three or four years later? I was shocked especially since it was an un-flagged and unmarked ship and I know the President cried “International law, international law,” well tell me what's so legal about having 150,000 troops surrounding Iraq unilaterally?

So, I think letting the Scuds into Yemen was a huge mistake. And I also think that the fact that President has no oil policy is going to get him in a lot of trouble because if he is unable to go to the Saudis and cut off the Saudis' support for terror . . . and that's going to be an issue in the campaign.

The Saudis are funding Hammas and the Saudis are funding madrassas which are essentially teaching, laying the groundwork for the next generation of suicide bombers and terrorists by teaching small children to hate Americans, Christians, and Jews.

And I think what the President hasn't been clear about is that everybody who teaches hate is an enemy including the Saudis if they continue to do that and the President has to be able to say to them, “You've got to stop,” and he can't do it because he has no oil policy and we're so dependent on Saudi oil - - particularly with what's going on Venezuela - - they're desperate to get oil, I think.

Me: Has the Administration used Iraq for political purposes?

Dean: He certainly did before the election, there's no question about that.

Me: You mean, before the November, 2000 election?

Dean: Yeah. (Karl) Rove (Bush’s chief political adviser) made it very clear that he was going to do it and he did it very successfully. I think the President cares deeply about Iraq but I think he has used it to focus attention away from his appalling record on the budget and domestic agenda. And the Democrats, have frankly, cooperated with that by not being as tough as they should be.

Me: Do you believe Bush has made a good case to the United Nations for an invasion?

Dean: No, I don't think the case has been made. I rarely agree with the French but I have to say I think they have a good suggestion which is to triple the number of inspectors. But the case (still) has to be made that Iraq is an eminent danger.

Me: Do you want a second UN resolution?

Dean: I would prefer a second UN resolution but if the UN is ready to go in without one, that's fine, but I think this needs to be done under the auspices of the UN. Saddam needs to be disarmed, let's be very clear about that. Saddam cannot be permitted to go on - - this can't go on forever - - he will be disarmed, but I think unilateral force is the last resort unlike the President who behaves as if it's the first resort.

Me: Would you prefer the President go back to Congress for a second resolution?

Dean: I think that's a good idea. If he makes the case to Congress he'll get the support. But I don't think he's made . . . the most important thing is he hasn't made the case to the American people yet. I mean, I was just down in Parris Island a week ago watching the training. I was lucky enough to be able to have lunch with some of the recruits and you know, those are young kids who are going to die, some of them in Iraq.