ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 24, 2005

SIMON SAYS:
Oh, admit it: Even though you may have contributed money, you got sick of the tsunami coverage long before it was over.

Are there still women named Trixie and guys named Gus?

Just as I was about to borrow a friend’s line and call George Bush’s recent inaugural address his “We’ll give you liberty or we’ll give you death speech”, the White House decides that he didn’t really mean it that way. He was just kidding. Disregard. Listen to the State of the Union instead.

Forget Red states and Blue states. The real difference between people in America is whether they hang stuff from their rear-view mirrors or not.

People who don't brush off the snow from the tops of their cars should be beaten with sticks. (Try driving behind one of them.)

Roe v. Wade was handed down 32 years ago last week. But how long will its basic holding last? What would a Supreme Court with new justices appointed by President Bush do about abortion? Well, the least likely scenario is the one some people want - - or fear - - the most: that at least five justices will decide a fetus has 14th Amendment protections from the moment of conception and, therefore, abortion is illegal everywhere in the United States. This is the “riots in the streets” scenario that not even the White House really wants. A more likely scenario is that five or more justices vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and let the 50 states each decide what to do about abortion. But how likely is that? There are currently three to four votes on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, leaving five justices who will probably continue to say a woman has a Constitutional right to an abortion before the fetus is viable and even afterwards if the health of the mother is at stake. Could President Bush get the opportunity to appoint enough new justices to change this? Well, there has not been a new justice appointed since 1994, the longest period without an appointment in modern times.

OK, I admit it: I don’t have broadband at home and I still manage to live. (Though not well.)

I don’t know why, but I find Bravo’s “Project Runway” hypnotically watchable.

The United States should not use torture for at least three reasons:
1. It is immoral. There has to be a difference between good guys and bad guys or what are we fighting for?
2. It puts our own soldiers at greater risk of torture if they are captured.
3. It is ineffective. Information gained by torture is worthless. A person will say anything to get the torture to stop.

If, after a snowstorm, you go to all the effort to dig out a parking space in front of your house on a public street, is it OK to “reserve” that space by putting an old kitchen chair there? And what if someone tosses your chair aside and parks in your space while you are at work? Well, in Chicago, we used to drag out our garden hoses and encase the offending car in a block of ice. It was wet and cold work, but worth it to see the expression on the dweeb’s face when he got back to his car.

Let me get this straight: The Bush administration paid a conservative commentator nearly a quarter of a million dollars to support Bush on TV? How goofy is that? Every conservative commentator I know supports Bush for free.

Do you work for someone who barges into meetings and says, “Can I have the room?” Quit.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 19, 2005

WASHINGTON - - Leave it to a Republican to ask the “Question That None Dare Ask” of incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

At Rice’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), asked her: “Would you explain to this committee what you and the president see as an exit strategy for America from Iraq?”

It is a very important question, but one many have been reluctant to ask because they fear the answer might be: “We don’t have one.”

The question is such a potent one because it summons forth echoes of Vietnam, where we had no realistic exit strategy. (Our unrealistic exit strategy was to kill everyone fighting against us.)

Today, however, we are assured that the United States does not send troops into combat without a realistic, achievable exit strategy for them. And, at the beginning of the Iraq war, our exit strategy was so obvious that nobody mentioned it: Our victorious troops would have flowers strewn in their path by grateful Iraqis, who would immediately set about to constitute a new army - - we disbanded Saddam’s old one - - hold elections, and embrace democratic reforms.

And very soon U.S. troops would simply would not be needed because there would be nobody for them to fight.

Insurgents? What insurgents? Terrorists? What terrorists? The people would love us!

Why, after all, would they not? Had we not liberated them from their evil tyrant? And would they not be grateful?

Well, as it turned out, no. Some of them are not grateful at all. And even though many in the administration would like to believe that the insurgents are all coming from outside Iraq and that, deep down, the Iraqi people really do love us, the insurgents could not operate at the scale they are now operating without the cooperation of at least some of the Iraqi people.

In Iraq, the insurgents are obviously being housed, fed, armed and protected by at least some of the Iraqi people. So are the Iraqis for us or against us? Well, some are for us and some are for the guys trying to kill us.

And the real question is whether we can find enough Iraqis to fight for their own country so we can go home.

Rice responded to Hagel’s questions about an exit strategy by saying, “…I think the goal is to get the mission accomplished and that means that the Iraqis have to be capable of some things before we lessen our own responsibility.”

But the Iraqis being “capable” of fighting the insurgents on their own is only part of the problem. They also have to want to do it.

Because if they don’t want to do it, apparently we are going to have to stay. Which means our “exit” strategy may not contain an exit.

How big a problem do we face in Iraq? One small example: Even though it generated only a few stories, U.S. forces in Iraq announced a few weeks ago that our State Department personnel could no longer travel on the road from central Baghdad to the airport because it was too dangerous. (They would have to take helicopters to and from the airport instead.)

The airport road is only 10 miles long and we have 1,000 troops guarding it and yet our troops - - the finest in the world and armed with the best weapons - - still can’t keep it safe from the insurgents.

But the Iraqi army, which does not yet actually exist in any sizeable numbers, is going to do the job for us? When? In what decade?

Condoleezza Rice tell us we have to “get the mission accomplished” and that means the “Iraqis have to be capable” of defending themselves.

But when, realistically, will that happen?

If you were an Iraqi would you want to risk death by joining the army?

Or would you say, “As long as the Americans are willing to risk their lives, why should I risk mine?”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 17, 2005

WASHINGTON - - President Bush recently told the Washington Post the public “ratified” the Iraq war when it re-elected him last November and, therefore, there is no reason to hold him or anyone else accountable for any mistakes made there.

There are any number of problems with this including the fact that only 50.8 percent of those who voted cast ballots for Bush and only 30.8 percent of eligible voters voted for him.

Not all that huge a ratification.

Also, while I certainly don’t dispute that Bush won the last election, people voted for him for all sorts of reasons. Some people didn’t want to switch presidents during wartime. Others liked and trusted him more than his opponent. Others agreed with his positions on gay marriage and abortion. Others felt his values were the same as their values. And some endorsed his invasion and occupation of Iraq.

There were a lot of reasons that people voted for George Bush. But to pick just one of them and say the public ratified his Iraq policy by re-electing him seems to be stretching the facts.

There is another problem. Opinions change quickly in this country. The election was held back last November. This is mid-January and a new poll shows that the public is much less pleased with our Iraq policy than President Bush currently is.

According to a University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Election Survey conducted last week, “54 percent said the situation (in Iraq) had not been worth going to war over, only 29 percent said the election January 30 would produce a stable government, and the public was about evenly split over whether the United States should bring troops home as soon as possible or wait until a stable government was established.”

The poll went on to say that 67 percent of all respondents, and 46 percent of Bush voters, said they agreed with the statement: “Democracy and freedom in Iraq are important, but the war has cost the United States too much in lives and money already to stay much longer.”

As far as “ratifications” go, this seems to be a weak one.

I suppose it might not matter much - - after all, public opinion swings back and forth - - but Bush’s statement that members of his administration need not be held accountable for their mistakes in Iraq is potentially troublesome.

What if the administration thinks invading Iran will also be easy and that our occupation of Iran will be greeted by Iranians strewing flowers in our path? Shouldn’t we learn something - - anything - - from what happened in Iraq? Aren’t mistakes worth examining?

The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And how much do we really want to repeat Iraq?

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - - There is a journalistic adage that goes: “Nobody remembers who gets it first; everybody remembers who gets it wrong.”

Nobody at CBS News has ever heard this adage apparently.

I have just finished slogging through all 224 pages of the Independent Review Panel report that investigated what went wrong with the Sept. 8, 2004 “60 Minutes Wednesday” segment on President Bush and his service in the Texas Air National Guard.

The slogging was worth it, because the best stuff comes at the end.

To summarize very briefly, the explosive part of the CBS segment centered on documents, allegedly from the files of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who was Bush’s commander, complaining about how Bush was seeking special treatment and ducking a physical, and how Killian had “ordered Lieutenant Bush suspended from flight status….”

The independent review panel investigating CBS was very lawyerly and very low-key and says though it cannot “conclude with absolute certainty whether the Killian documents are authentic or forgeries”, the panel discovered “a number of issues that raise serious questions about the authenticity of the documents and their content.”

CBS defended the segment after it aired, but Dan Rather eventually went on the air on Sept. 20, and said CBS could no longer vouch for the authenticity of the documents and he apologized for airing the segment.

But Rather didn’t mean it.

On page 208 of the report, the panel says that Rather did not believe “an apology was appropriate” and that he made the apology only because CBS management wanted him to and because he is a “team player.”

“Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because ‘the facts are right on the money,’ and that no one has provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic,” the report states.

The panel - - understated as always - - says it “finds (Rather’s) comments disavowing the apology to be troubling….”

No kidding. Here is the path of the documents, whose contents Rather still believes in:

1. Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army Guard, and an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, gives photocopies of the documents to CBS producer Mary Mapes and tells her he got them from another former Texas Army Guardsman, Chief Warrant Officer George Conn.

According to the panel report, “Mapes and her team of associate producers did virtually nothing to attempt to contact Chief Warrant Officer Conn to confirm this story and further trace the chain of custody of the documents.”

2. After Mapes gets some of the documents on Sept. 2, she proceeds to “crash” the segment and get it on the air by Sept. 8, a very short amount of time in the world of TV. Mapes tries to get the documents authenticated, but, according to the report, two of the experts who examined the documents tell Mapes they have “various concerns” about the documents and all four examiners contacted by CBS inform Mapes that “they could not authenticate the documents, primarily because they were copies.” But CBS goes forward anyway.

3. After the story airs and various individuals and media question its accuracy, Burkett admits he did not get the documents from Conn. Where did he get them? Well, he says they came from a woman named Lucy Ramirez - - whom nobody can locate - - who gave them to an “unidentified man” who gave them to Burkett at a livestock show in Houston.

On the way home from the show, according to USA Today, Burkett says he stopped at a Kinko’s in Waco, copied the memos, and then, in the Kinko’s parking lot “burned the memos he had been given and the envelope they were in.”

Burkett admits that the story sounds “fantastic” and tells USA Today, “This is going to sound like some damn sci-fi movie.”

Which, perhaps, is why Dan Rather, who did not even bother to watch the segment before it aired, finds the contents of the documents so believable. Perhaps little green men told him the memos were true. Rather and the fantastic seem to have a relationship. What is the frequency, Kenneth!

Maybe some tiny part of this fiasco would be understandable if CBS had been going after some deputy county sheriff in downstate Illinois. But CBS was going after the President of the United States. During the closing months of a re-election campaign!

The panel blames the CBS errors on “myopic zeal” and not on any political bias and I accept that.

CBS fired four people after the report came out - - though not Rather - - and announced Friday that the future of “60 Minutes Wednesday” is in doubt.

I am not sure many people care. But the little green men might be very, very angry.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 10, 2005

WASHINGTON - - As political parties have declined in power, so has the importance of the party chairmen.

What a party stands for and what it aspires to, which most people pay attention to only during presidential campaigns, is not determined by the party chairman, but by the candidate for president.

So what does a modern party chairman really do? Primarily three things: raise money, be a public spokesperson for the party, and take care of sundry “housekeeping” chores to keep the party active and up to date.

Even though the current Democratic party chair, Terry McAuliffe, got whacked pretty hard because the Democrats failed to win the presidency, the House or the Senate last year, much of the criticism is undeserved.

First, at a time when there was no presumptive Democratic nominee, i.e. before John Kerry started winning primaries, McAuliffe did try to make the party more inclusive and more moderate, by urging Democratic candidates to soft-pedal gun control as an issue and reach out to what we now call Red State voters.

But once it was clear Kerry was going to be the nominee, it was Kerry’s job to pick an agenda and sell it to the American people, not McAuliffe’s. (Similarly, is McAuliffe really to blame for the loss of seats in the House and Senate or the candidates themselves?)

McAuliffe is also criticized for “front-loading” the primary schedule, which led to Kerry’s early coronation as the presumptive nominee. In other words, some Democrats now complain McAuliffe gave them a lame candidate.

But not only was McAuliffe universally praised for front-loading at the time, it is hard to see how drawing out the process would have changed the result. Once Kerry won Iowa, there was a stampede by Democrats in state after state to unite behind him. (Kerry lost only three primaries, one each to John Edwards, Wesley Clark and Howard Dean.)

McAuliffe also fulfilled his three prime duties: He raised a ton of money, he was good on TV, and he modernized the party’s computer system so at least the DNC knows how to get in touch with Democrats now.

Today, there is a scramble to replace McAuliffe. On Feb. 12, the DNC will meet and the approximately 440 members will vote. Last week, I wrote that Howard Dean was seriously considering running, though I could not figure out why.

This week, it is nearly certain that he is running - - and I still can’t figure out why.

If you become party chairman in 2005, you cannot run for president in 2008. (At least Dean has pledged not to do so.) So why does Dean, who has a huge e-mail list, a proven ability to raise money on the Internet, the experience of one presidential campaign under his belt and a loyal cadre of followers not want to run for president in 2008?

Well, I guess he believes he can transform the party. But as president you can transform the nation and the world.

The only sensible explanation I have heard is that Dean never really wanted to be president in the first place. He didn’t really want it in 2004 - - he ran to increase public awareness of his issues - - and he doesn’t want it in the future.

OK, nothing wrong with that. But can Dean really win an election where the voters are hardcore, party regulars?

Obviously, he thinks so, but there is also an emerging Anybody-But-Dean coalition within the DNC that will try to stop him.

Some prominent Democrats have approached McAuliffe about staying on in the job. I can’t say with certainly that McAuliffe would win - - some think it is time for a big changes in the party and changing the chairman would be the first sign of that - - but he would have a better chance than some who are now running.

I am also told he is not interested in staying on, however, unless the party is hopelessly deadlocked.

Which it could be. With Democrats, anything is always possible.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 5, 2005

WASHINGTON - - Because the Democrats haven’t decided what they should now stand for, they are having a hard time deciding who their new chairman should be.

The 440 members of the Democratic National Committee will meet in February to choose someone to replace the current chair, Terry McAuliffe.

Perhaps because the job no longer looks that appetizing, a number of people have dropped out of the running, leaving just four active candidates: former member of the House from Texas Martin Frost, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, New Democratic Network president Simon Rosenberg and Democratic activist Donnie Fowler.

A few others are considering running, including former presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Do not feel badly if the only name you recognize in that list is Dean. The party chair is often not widely known to the general public.

But Dean’s high-profile, if not his performance in the primaries (he won only one state, his home state of Vermont, and that only after he had ended active campaigning), would seem to give him an advantage should he choose to run.

I am having a hard time believing he will actually run for the job, however. He has said if he is elected Democratic chair he will not run for president in 2008. And I can’t believe he won’t run in 2008.

There is really no reason for him to sit out 2008. Yes, he lost badly last year, but the knowledge you gain from running for president is invaluable, and if Dean can learn, mature and adapt as a candidate, he would certainly be a credible contender next time.

I had assumed there were three Democrats sure to run in 2008: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Howard Dean. (Others will probably run and John Kerry might run again, even though the Democrats do not have much of a record for re-nominating people who have lost: Adlai Stevenson was the last and he ended up losing twice to Dwight Eisenhower.)

So why would Dean consider running for DNC chair? Dean, who is a former chair of the Democratic Governors Association and the National Governors Association, is very proud of the work he did for those bodies and believes he has the skills to transform the Democratic Party.

Also, it would make him a major player in national politics for the next four years.

Not that Dean would be a shoe-in to win the party chairmanship. Far from it. Some Red State Democrats would certainly oppose him, fearing he is too far to the left, and others would oppose him because they don’t believe a self-proclaimed “insurgent” should be the public face and voice of the party.

He might win anyway - - though I think Martin Frost would probably have to be considered the front-runner right now - - but again, I can’t quite figure out why Dean would want to win.

Dean has a heck of an e-mail list, a cadre of people who still support him for president very passionately, and a proven ability to raise money on the Internet. So why give up even the outside chance for the presidency for the life of a party chair, which involves relentless fundraising and a horrendous amount of travel to rubber chicken dinners?

In the end, I don’t think Dean will run for party chair. Having shown himself to be a risk-taker in 2004, I think he will take the same risk in 2008 and run for president.

So where does that leave the Democratic Party? In a state they are familiar with: a state of confusion.

Next: What the Democrats should do.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 3, 2005

SIMON SAYS:
You can tell a lot about a person by whether they preferred Mary Ann or Ginger.

When did wearing a visible t-shirt under a golf shirt become a fashion statement?

Admit it: You couldn't change a flat tire if your life depended on it. (In fact, when is the last time you checked the tire pressure on your spare? For most people the answer is “never” or “I didn’t know that spares had tire pressure!”)

Yes, the Baltimore policeman Jimmy McNulty on HBO’s “The Wire” played by Dominic West is British and in real life speaks with a British accent. What is amazing about this is that he does an American accent better than most Americans.

Why can't they make parking meters that take credit cards?

Why at American race tracks the horses run counter-clockwise and at British race tracks they run clockwise is one of the great mysteries of life. Also, the stripes on men’s ties that are British in design go from the upper left to the lower right (from the heart down, in other words) while on American design ties, they go from the upper right to the lower left.

Wallpaper can be so effective.

Paperback Pick of the Month: “Gulag” by Anne Applebaum.

When I saw the play “Closer” in 1997, the language was genuinely shocking. Mike Nichols has now turned it into a movie, but after seven years of the language on cable TV, the shock effect is virtually gone. It is worth seeing, however. In fact, it may be one of the best pointless movies ever made.

Does anyone still wear ankle bracelets? Why?

A good short-order cook is worth his or her weight in gold.

Men who wear both a belt and suspenders are really insecure.

Latest controversy amid the propertied classes: When walking your dog, if you do the civic and proper thing of scooping up the poop and putting it in a plastic bag, is it then OK to deposit that bag in a stranger’s or neighbor’s garbage can that is sitting out waiting for collection? Some say, “Sure, why not? Garbage is garbage.” Others are violently opposed, arguing that their garbage is their property and must not be used without their permission.

I resolve to drive no more than 5 mph over the speed limit in 2005. Well, maybe no more than 9 mph over. They don't give tickets for going 9 mph over, do they? (And don't tell me to drive the speed limit. Where I live, if you drive the speed limit, you end up as the hood ornament on the truck behind you.)

Why is it so difficult to find those fat No. 1 pencils, which used to be plentiful in every newsroom in the world?

Orchids: you either love them or hate them.

You are really old if you can remember TV repairmen.

The FAA is absolutely nuts if it allows cell phone use during airline flights. At least on trains you can switch cars if the idiots in your car are bellowing too loudly. What are you going to do on a plane? Go to the baggage compartment?

And speaking of flying, I get the feeling you better use up your US Airways frequent flyer miles as soon as possible.