Presenting Tom Brokaw

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 26, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Here is yet another difference between Tom Brokaw and me:

I am leading him down a hallway at Harvard's Institute of Politics to a holding room where he will grab a quick sandwich before he speaks to students.

The room where he will speak is crowded, overflowing and I have to make a path through the crowd in the hall to lead Brokaw to the holding room. In my path is a young woman with a tiny baby. I smile at the woman, smile at the baby, and then move around them to get into the holding room.

I look behind me but Brokaw is not there. He is talking to the young woman. "How old is he?" Brokaw asks her about her baby "What's his name?" This goes on for about a minute before Brokaw finally comes into the holding room.

As you might imagine, where ever Brokaw goes, he causes quite a stir. And he caused quite a stir while talking to the young woman and her baby. But Brokaw operates as if the stir did not exist. He rarely allows it to alter his behavior.

This is something I have always admired about him.

Due to Institute of Politics rules, Brokaw's talk to the students was off the record, so I can't quote from it. But this is from my introduction of him:

The guy next to me is Tom Brokaw. You may recognize the face.

Brokaw was hired by NBC News in 1966 and from 1976-1981 he anchored "Today."

After John Chancellor retired, Brokaw and Roger Mudd became co-anchors of the Nightly News, until Brokaw was chosen as the sole anchor of the top-rated broadcast in 1983.

Brokaw has won two Alfred I DuPont awards, two Peabody awards, and nine Emmys.

On March 19, 2003, Brokaw was the first American news anchor to report that the war with Iraq had begun, and in April 2003, he landed the first television interview with President Bush after the President declared the end of major combat. During the summer of 2003, Brokaw was the first evening news anchor to return to Baghdad to report for five nights for NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC on post-war Iraq and the reconstruction efforts.

In 2003, NBC Nightly News was honored with the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast, representing the program's fourth consecutive win in this category.

Brokaw has covered every Presidential election since 1968.

So what else does Brokaw do? He writes books. His four best-sellers are "The Greatest Generation," "The Greatest Generation Speaks", "An Album of Memories," and "A Long Way from Home, "

On December 1, 2004, Brokaw stepped down after 21 years as the anchor and managing editor of the NBC Nightly News. But he will stay at the network doing documentaries and other reporting.

Most of what I have just told you about Brokaw you can find in various bios, but what you can't find is this: Of all the people in television today, nobody is better liked or more respected by print reporters than Tom Brokaw.

Who cares what print reporters think? Well, hardly anybody. But why print reporters admire Brokaw so much is instructive.

And that is because first and foremost, Tom is and always has been a reporter. Presidential cycle after presidential cycle you go to some small event in Iowa or New Hampshire and there is Tom Brokaw, pad and pen in hand, no crew, no entourage, just taking notes and reporting.

Has this become increasingly tougher for a man who now is, after all, a living logo, and who attracts attention wherever he goes? Yeah. But he does it anyway.

I first met Brokaw in 1984, in the basement of what was then Loop Junior College, now Harold Washington College, in Chicago. It was a small rally for Jesse Jackson, covered by a handful of reporters and Tom Brokaw walked in. All by himself. Just a notebook and pen. He came up to me, stuck out his hand, introduced himself, asked if I was a local reporter, and then asked me a few questions about Jackson.

I am not saying I was impressed, but I have not washed my hand to this day.

Here is a passage from my decidedly non-bestselling book "Road Show" about a day in Iowa just before the presidential caucuses of 1988, when Brokaw let me follow him around for a day:

Brokaw heads back outside and drives to the Prince Masonic Hall where the Jackson rally is underway. There are no seats left and Brokaw stands to one side of the hall, taking notes in a spiral notebook with a black felt tip pen as Jesse Jackson speaks. Jackson's speeches often do not have clear-cut endings (you know they are over when he leaves the hall) and now he is going through his ritual of inviting children up on the stage.

While this is going on, a black man in a camel coat and gray hat stands up, moves to the aisle, turns his back on Jackson and heads directly for Brokaw. He reaches out his hand and Brokaw shakes it. "You are very popular here," the man says. Brokaw mumbles a word or two, but now a crowd is gathering, people are peering over each other's shoulders to get a look at him.

"He's goin' to run for president," the man says of Brokaw. "And he's goin' to win!"

Will Tom Brokaw ever become president of the United States? I do not know. There may be some pay-cuts not worth taking.

But I will always remember what Tom Brokaw once said: "It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference."

Here is Tom Brokaw. A man who has made a difference.

"Many Republicans Are Afraid to Show Their Faces"

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 21, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - In my personal contacts with Harvard students this semester, I have found that many stereotypes about them are untrue: They are not snooty, they are not all from wealthy families, and they do not have a sense of entitlement.

At least one stereotype is true, however: Most of them are liberal. There are conservatives here, just like there are Republicans here, but mostly the kids are liberal and Democratic.

One of my liaisons - - an undergraduate student assigned to keep me out of trouble - - does a guest column about this topic today. He is Andrew Laitman, 19, a sophomore and math major from Brooklyn, N.Y.:

By Andrew Laitman

When I first came to Harvard, I expected to find some Republicans to debate. While Republicans do exist at Harvard, they are indeed a rare breed.

However, most Republicans that I encounter are too timid to discuss their views. In fact, most don't even want to admit that they are Republicans.

One evening in the dining hall, I was sitting with a friend from California and we were discussing Hillary Clinton. He wasn't a big fan of hers and I asked why.

"I'm a Republican," he whispered.

"What?" I responded, not because he's a Republican, but because I simply couldn't hear him.

He interpreted that to mean that I hate Republicans, which I quickly denied. But his fear somewhat surprised me.

Recently, Douglas Feith, the former Under Secretary of Defense who was a chief architect of the Iraq war, came to speak on campus. During his speech he was heckled and interrupted frequently.

An even more chilling example occurred just last week when the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security came to recruit on campus.

The representatives from these institutions didn't come to Harvard to make a political statement, but rather to hold sessions in which students could learn about careers at the two agencies.

Not only did audience members heckle the speakers, they staged a mock deportation of an immigrant and someone vomited into a bag.

A year and a half ago, Harvard's pro-life campus group had its posters and displays torn down. While a good portion of the student body disapproved of the destruction of the posters, there was still a contingent that supported the destruction because in its view the posters were very offensive.

No wonder many Republicans are afraid to show their faces on campus.

This is very troublesome to me because it hinders honest and open debate. It's unfortunate that I can make the assumption that almost anyone that I run into at Harvard is a Democrat. These assumptions give people the liberty not only to launch attacks on Republican policies but also personal ones on Republicans in conversation among themselves.

But isn't asking people to back off personal attacks censorship of debate? Yes. But if people feel so passionately about their views, shouldn't they feel confident enough to make an argument based on facts rather than on personal attacks?

It puzzles me why there are still so many students on campus who feel like one-sided protests are more effective than open discussions.

Even though I am a registered Democrat, these "chilling effects" have influenced me. During the controversy involving Harvard President Larry Summers, I had some opinions that I was afraid to express out of fear of backlash from some of my female friends.

My opinions were rather nuanced and I was thought that they could be interpreted to mean that I agreed with Larry Summers and wholeheartedly supported him. Yet, I openly expressed these opinions around my male friends.

I don't know whether or not my fear was a reasonable justification in hiding my opinions from women, but I hope that my fellow classmates will accept my opinions regardless of who they are.

Don't feel sorry for me, however. There are plenty of outlets for open and no-holds-barred debate on campus. I just wish that we could have these conversations outside of the traditional outlets.

DiCaprio, Edwards and Me

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 18, 20005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Let me be the first to say that I do not expect gratitude. I have had some extraordinary newsmakers come to speak to my study group at Harvard this semester including John Kerry, Ralph Nader, Ralph Reed, and John Edwards. It is I who am grateful to them.

And let me also be the first to say I am no Leonardo DiCaprio. (I am barely Roger Simon.)

But when I logged onto John Edwards's blog recently (at oneamericacommittee.com) to see what his impressions of his trip to Harvard were, I was a little shocked.

This is Edwards's entire entry for the trip: "On Wednesday, I spent the whole day at Harvard as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics. The students there had some great ideas to help get young people involved with the fight on poverty and I'm looking forward to putting some of their ideas to work.

"The whole day was really interesting but my staff perked up the most when we ran into Leonardo DiCaprio at the airport. He did so much for the Democratic Party during the campaign and it was nice to be able to thank him in person for everything he did."

That's its. Finito. The end. Which surprised me. There seemed to be an awful lot missing from the item. Like the line: "While my staff perked up at meeting Leonardo DiCaprio, we all had one question: If you put him in a line-up with Roger Simon, could anybody tell them apart?"

The Edwards-DiCaprio meeting was reported by no fewer than two newspapers. (If one newspaper reports something, it might be made up. If two newspaper report something, it is absolute fact - - whether it happened or not.)

This item appeared in the Boston Herald on April 15: "Yes, that was Hollywood hottie Leonardo DiCaprio dining with Sen. John Edwards at Legal Test Kitchen in the new Terminal A at Logan International Airport the other night.

"Our spies in the sky say the two were headed to NYC on the shuttle together.

"Apres meal, Leo, who is coming back in June to film 'The Departed' with Matt Damon and Martin Scorsese, boarded the plane with the Dems' 2004 vice presidential washout and a servant.

" 'Leo's meathead 'handler boy' walked on the plane with about eight huge bags, bumping into every seat, while Leo carried his ticket with two hands,' said our spy. 'Edwards carried his own luggage.' "

While I am sure that Sen. Edwards was not thrilled at being called the vice presidential "washout" (after all, the Democratic ticket did win 20 states in 2004 and some people are still waiting to vote in Cleveland), he probably liked the Boston Globe account of April 15, a lot more:

"Wednesday was a busy day for the Legal Test Kitchen, the new Legal Sea Foods eatery at the new Terminal A at Logan Airport. Leonardo DiCaprio stopped by the takeout counter for lobster wraps to go….Last but not least, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards came in for a glass of wine and some ahi tuna. When he was finished, he went into the kitchen and shook hands with the staff."

Those last two sentences are a very important clue as to John Edwards's future.

Because if you are going to run for national office again, there are two things you really need: The ability to reach out to ordinary people. And a drink.

Simon Says

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 13, 2005

SIMON SAYS:
I think anybody who can spell Kyrgyzstan deserves to be its new leader.

It takes a lot of courage to puff and puff on a balloon until it pops.

Far and away the best all-female a capella choir I have ever heard is Harvard's "Fallen Angels." (A capella either means "without musical accompaniment" or "outdoors," I always forget which.)

Don't you always feel goofy after the flight is over and you lurch up from your airline seat to grab your suitcase from the overhead bin - - and discover you haven't unbuckled your seatbelt?

I was all set to vacation in Iceland when that country made Bobby Fischer, the hate-mongering fugitive and former chess champion, a citizen. Now I may go to Antarctica instead.

Does anyone ever put anything in that little "fifth pocket" in your blue jeans? And how many times have you forgotten whatever you put in there when you throw the jeans in the wash?

Half a billion Twinkies are produced each year in America. And I have a feeling only a few hundred people eat them all.

Careful watchers of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" will note that Tippi Hedren is left-handed.

I don't believe there is a human being in America who knows how to activate the V-chip in his TV.

What's with the people who refuse to use the moving walkways in airline terminals? Are they just showing off? Don't they know how much fun it is to walk fast on a moving walkway?

Thanks to Jeff "Always-Ahead-Of-the-Curve" Zeleny for pointing out that if you go to www.google.com/maps, enter an address and click on "satellite" you can see some pretty cool satellite photos. He tried it with success on 801 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, the site of a famous restaurant frequented by politicians, the press and anyone with a very large and ill-monitored expense account. I tried it on my boyhood home, 7840 S. Yates, Chicago, and it worked pretty well. Also 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, is in there. I'll bet the Russians used to have to pay a fortune for this stuff.

And speaking of Google, when is the last time you used a real phonebook?

People who emphasize the first syllable of "umbrella" should be beaten with sticks.

Two reasons professional tennis has collapsed: a shortage of interesting stars and all that grunting. Grunting has ruined tennis. You just can't listen to hour after hour of it.

This may be a highpoint for pro-Catholicism in the United States due to the personal magnetism and achievements of Pope John Paul II. But Harvard's Richard Parker, who teaches religion, pointed out to me the other day that the United States only established diplomatic relations with the Holy See under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Took us a long time in other words. And if you really want some interesting information, go to adherents.com and check out the U.S. presidents section. Though Catholics are the largest religious denomination in the United States with 26 percent of the population, they have produced only one president. Episcopalians are only 1.7 percent of the U.S. population, but have produced 11 presidents.

Contrary to popular belief, a train will come sooner if you stare hard enough down the track.

The Jester

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 11, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - You may have never heard of David Javerbaum, but you probably have laughed at him.

Or at least his jokes. He is the head writer for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," which appears on Comedy Central.

Not only did "The Daily Show" just win its second Peabody Award, but it's on a definite roll: A year ago, a Pew Research Center poll showed that 21 percent of people aged 18 to 29, cited "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live" as a place where they regularly learned about presidential campaign news.

"A lot of them," Jon Stewart told the Associated Press, "are probably high."

High or not, the trend seem to be tilting away from regular news and toward satirical news. According to the Pew poll, 16 percent fewer young people watched the network news in 2004 than they did in 2000 (which helps explain why the age of the average network news viewer is 60) while 12 percent more young people are watching comedy shows than they did four years ago. This was the largest percentage increase in the poll, topping even Internet use, which was up only 7 percent.

I did my own survey when Javerbaum came up to Harvard recently to give a talk to my weekly study group. (He packed the room, with some people sitting on the floor and others spilling out the door.) I asked everyone who watched "The Daily Show" regularly to raise his hand. Nearly every hand went up.

I asked how many watched the network news regularly. Only about three hands went up.

What does this mean for the future of society?

Not much, according to Javerbaum.

"I do not think our show makes a difference," he said. "I don't think Aristophanes made a difference. I don't think Jonathan Swift made a difference."

In other words, Javerbaum doesn't think satire really causes change. Though he does think humor is a good thing. "Laughter is always a good thing, a redemptive thing," he said. "It's always good for the soul. Humor helps people get through tough times."

Javerbaum, 33, has worked as a writer for The Daily Show since 1999. He worked for a year as a staff writer for "The Late Show with David Letterman" and three years as a writer for the humor paper The Onion. He also writes scripts and lyrics for musical theater.

He graduated from Harvard in 1993, where he wrote for "The Harvard Lampoon" and co-wrote two Hasty Pudding musicals.

"America (The Book)" co-authored by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin (executive producer of "The Daily Show") and Javerbaum has been on the New York Times bestseller list for the last 27 weeks. And I am sure that has nothing to do with the fact that the book contains a picture of all nine U.S. Supreme Court justices completely naked.

The picture is a fake, of course, but Javerbaum said the book's producers spent quite a bit of time matching each justice with a "photorealistic" naked body and not just any naked body.

But what is the coolest thing about the picture? "The Supreme Court defends our right to print pictures of them naked," Javerbaum said.

Is this a great country or what?

But don't some people - - those they make fun of, for instance - - really hate the "Daily Show" writers?

Javerbaum thinks not. He says the show gets almost no hate mail.

"We are the jester," he said. "As long as we keep the funny shoes and hat on, we can say anything."

So what makes a good show?

"Absurdity, hypocrisy, silliness and folly is what we're looking for," Javerbaum said.

Which means he will never run out of material.

Politics, Television and Reality

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 6, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Michael Sheehan is standing in front of a packed room of Harvard students looking into a video camera.

On a TV off to the side, we see the live picture of Michael Sheehan.

"Don't look at the TV; look at me," Sheehan tells the students. "When I get a good, neutral expression on my face, I will freeze the picture."

We all look at him. He arranges his face until he has a nice, neutral, perfectly acceptable expression on his face. He looks neither happy nor sad.

He freezes the picture.

Then we look at the TV screen. There is a shocking difference.

Even though Sheehan looked fine in person, he looks very glum, even angry on TV. How can this be? Can TV alter reality?

Go ask Howard Dean about his scream.

Sheehan, a Yale School of Drama graduate, now charges up to $15,000 per day (the Harvard students, who may run for public office some day, were getting Sheehan's advice for free) to teach politicians and corporate big shots how to use TV to their advantage, instead of letting TV alter their reality.

He is very, very good at what he does. But like all great teachers, great students bring out his best. The year was 1996 and incumbent President Bill Clinton was prepping for his first presidential debate with Republican candidate Bob Dole. This is from my book on that year's campaign, called "Show Time. " The setting is the Chautauqua Institution, a 750-acre retreat in the countryside about 60 miles southwest of Buffalo:

Michael Sheehan crouched by the videotape machine, making small notes on a pad. Bill Clinton stood on the stage, behind the lectern, beneath blazing lights, answering questions. Sometimes Sheehan noted on his pad when the president had made a good comment or a bad one, but he often made notes merely about Clinton's gestures or the expression on Clinton's face, whether his lip curled or his forehead crinkled. Or simply how Clinton stood.

George Stephanopoulos joined Sheehan at the tape machine, watching Clinton on the monitor rather than watching the live Clinton who was standing just a few yards away. How it looked on TV is what mattered, not what it looked like in real life.

Sometimes, Clinton would come down from the lectern and stand over Stephanopoulos and Sheehan and say, "Show me."

And Sheehan would roll back the tape and say, "Be careful of your reaction at the end" or "That looks good, keep that." And Clinton would nod and make a mental note.

At the second debate, which would be a town-meeting format, Clinton would be able to move around on the set a lot and Sheehan carefully prepped Clinton to move toward Dole because he knew Dole would find it disconcerting, even threatening. "I wanted Dole to hear the pitter-patter of his feet," Sheehan told me later. But for the first debate, the two would remain relatively stationary. Or at least that's how Bob Dole viewed it.

To Sheehan, TV presentations were almost always about movement. The movement was not always obvious to the participants, but it could have a huge effect on the viewer. "We scripted Clinton's moves in all the right places," Sheehan said. "We told him how to perch behind the lectern and how to use reaction shots."

"When he goes negative on you," Sheehan told Clinton, "have no reaction at all. None."

"Don't worry," a Clinton aide interrupted. "They can't use reaction shots. Both sides have agreed." Heads nodded around the room.

"You're all nuts!" Sheehan shouted. "And I'm going to quit if we don't practice for reaction shots right now!"

His fellow preppers were shocked. Sheehan was a mild-mannered, entertaining person. He didn't shout. But he was shouting now. After they calmed Sheehan down, Clinton practiced some reaction shots for him. "You listen to Dole with a cocked ear when he attacks you," Sheehan said. "When you are attacked, just jot it down. To react to the attack is to reinforce the attack."

And even though the two were not supposed to move about the stage, Sheehan worked out with Clinton exactly when he was to step inside the lectern and when to step outside the lectern at the first debate.

But didn't this all get very complicated? I asked Sheehan afterwards. Clinton had to worry about what he was saying, what Dole was saying, what his facial expressions should be, how to move, how to gesture. Wasn't that an awful lot to absorb?

"That's why we went through it so much," Sheehan said. "It was an organized, coherent, rational process."

Later, Sheehan said that Clinton was like an "improvisational actor," which is an actor who immerses himself in his role, becomes his role. "You feel the part, and you see what comes out," Sheehan said.

Some people thought Clinton was such a success on the campaign trail because he was a "natural" or "born" campaigner. But Sheehan knew how hard Clinton worked at it.

"For me," Sheehan once told me "working with Clinton is like Kazan getting to work with Brando."

Sheehan finished with the Harvard kids and prepared to fly back to Washington. The 2008 presidential election is not very far away and potential candidates are already calling him.

Peril in the Skies

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
APRIL 4, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - The nation is not divided into Red vs. Blue, Republicans vs. Democrats or liberals vs. conservatives.

The nation is divided into those who think it would be a good idea to allow cell phone use on airplanes and those who would rather fly in the baggage compartment if this ever happens.

The FCC has announced it is considering the idea because new cell phones don't interfere with a plane's instruments like the old ones allegedly did.

Yes, there are phones on planes now, those tucked into the seatback. But have you ever seen a person using one of those phones? No. And that is because they are so expensive, only Oprah, Bill Gates and the chairman of Halliburton can afford to use them. (And they probably have their own planes.)

If personal cell phone use is allowed on passenger jets, however, planes will become what trains are already: unbearable.

You will get scores of people bellowing into their phones, sharing the tedium of their lives with all of us.

Though Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains often include a "quiet car" where cell phone use is banned, Amtrak (being Amtrak) marks the cars very poorly and doesn't enforce the rule at all.

The last time I rode in the "quiet car", a young woman kept yelling into her cell phone: "How come I am a better friend to my friends than my friends are to me? How come I can't find a 'me'? How come?"

I dunno. Could it be that your friends find your loud whining to be boring and unpleasant?

Imagine all this on a crowded jetliner, with people shouting louder to be heard over the jet noise. At least on a train, you can get up and try to find a quieter car. (Good luck.) What are you going to do on a plane? Step outside?

I am writing this a few hours after sitting in National Airport in Washington, waiting for a shuttle flight to Boston.

The flight was late, the waiting area crowded, and Mr. Toilet - - as he became known to scores of us - - was bellowing into his cell phone.

"I called to tell you what was clogging the toilet," he bellowed. "You'll never guess. Go ahead, guess. You'll never guess."

It was late morning and some people were finishing breakfast in the waiting area. What had clogged Mr. Toilet's toilet was not uppermost on their minds.

"Every few days, the toilet would run over," Mr. Toilet yelled. "Every few days. I plunged it and plunged it, but every few days it would run over. You know what it was?"

We did not. We did not want to know. But Mr. Toilet continued.

"I got one of them plumber's whatya-callits," Mr. Toilet said. "One of them plumber's things. I can't think what they are called. A whatya-callit."

Snakes! I wanted to yell at Mr. Toilet. They are called a plumber's snakes!

"So I used it and used it, but in a few days, the toilet backs up again!" Mr. Toilet yelled on. "Finally I called a plumber. And he comes over with a real heavy-duty whatya-call-it. Much bigger than mine. And guess what he found?"

I looked around the waiting area. Nobody looked like he wanted to guess.

"He brought up this wad, this mass, this clump, this gob of…" and here Mr. Toilet paused for emphasis, raising his voice even higher. "This mass of Teflon tape! A roll of Teflon tape! An entire roll. But it was like a giant wad by now!"

Mr. Toilet was clearly blown away by the experience. And he was calling everyone he knew to tell them about it. "What was a roll, an entire roll, of Teflon tape doing in my toilet?" Mr. Toilet wanted to know.

I think I know. I think somebody, on a previous flight, had been trapped near Mr. Toilet when he was on some other loud and annoying phone call. And that person got Mr. Toilet's address off his luggage, snuck in one night, and stuck a role of Teflon tape in his toilet.

Me, I could have thought of a better place to stick it.