Posts By Author » Roger Simon
Why Paul Really Lost in Iowa
5 Jan 2012 
12:01 am
After listening to so many Republican debates that I can no longer count them, one thing became clear: There were almost no significant policy distinctions between the candidates in the domestic arena. All were basically minor differences, although often inflated for political purposes. What set the candidates apart were qualities of personality, electability and experience, not the issues.
Much of the bickering concerned who would best follow through on their conservative principles, something which is of course mere speculation until they are elected.
Only in the area of foreign affairs was there …
Trump, Ego and the Presidency
24 Dec 2011 12:02 am
It was only a week or so ago that I made a short video titled “What Do We About the Donald?” (available on YouTube). It was intended to be a goof, riffing on Trump’s supposed presidential ambitions and suggesting a better use of his abilities — i. e., to take over the United Nations and turn that useless institution into the “Trump U.N.,” a potentially hugely successful, if admittedly vulgar, luxury hotel.
Little did I know that Trump is yet more serious about his presidential aims, to the extent that the …
Explaining Newt
14 Dec 2011 12:03 am
A good portion of the right-wing punditocracy, Beltway sorts especially, appears to harbor a deep dislike of Newt Gingrich. They can’t believe he is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and are doing everything in their power to enlighten the great unwashed about the multiple inadequacies of this man and knock some sense into them (us) before it is too late.
Now, I am not a Beltway person. I am something even worse — a Hollywood and Vine person — so everything I say is suspect and should be. But …
Gingrich Blasts It Out of Park!
13 Dec 2011 12:01 am
The Bambino stands in the center of the stage, untouchable, uncatchable, unbeatable. He is Newt Gingrich, and he has become the Sultan of Swat.
It is Saturday night at yet another Republican debate, and — wham! wham! wham! — Gingrich keeps blasting them out of the park.
Mitt Romney claims he should be president, because, unlike Newt, Romney is not a “career politician.”
“Let’s be candid,” Newt replies. “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is that you lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994.”
Wham!
Newt, like the real Bambino, Babe Ruth, is …
Obama to Iran: Enjoy Your Nukes
8 Dec 2011 12:01 am
Barack Obama and his minions — Hillary Clinton, who these days disses Israel every chance she gets, and Ambassador Howard Gutman, who thinks Islamic anti-Semitism began at a Tel Aviv falafel shop a week ago Thursday — love to put pressure on our supposed ally … but on Iran’s despicable mullahs, not so much.
So it should be no surprise that our president is pushing back on last week’s Senate 100-0 vote (how often does that happen?) for stronger sanctions on Iran.
What’s behind this? The mind drifts to two key events …
Politicians Are Receding From View
2 Dec 2011 1:35 am
Every four years, we are pushed farther and farther away. The candidate recedes into the distance, separated from us by rope lines, staff and attitude. This will be the 10th presidential election I have covered, and sometimes people ask me what has changed the most over the years.
We used to get close, I tell them. So close, we could talk to the candidates. So close, we could touch them. In 1980, in a mad throng of deliriously happy supporters in Serb Hall in Milwaukee, I was crushed up against Ronald …
Politics in the Year of Danger
30 Nov 2011 2:50 am
In politics, this has been The Year of Living Dangerously.
It has been the year of the risk, the shiver, the shudder, the thrill. All quickly felt. All quickly passing.
The media have driven it. Faced with an incumbent president running a careful and as yet uninspiring campaign, and a Republican field as dynamic as wet laundry drying on the line, the press has felt obliged to step up and fill the void.
You cannot point with certainty as to when it began, but it burst forth with full-on binge coverage of the …
Confessions of a Flip-flopper
23 Nov 2011 12:04 am
Do not share this column with your friends, unless you really must. And, please, no Twitter or Facebook. It’s quite embarrassing.
Nevertheless, I no longer in good conscience can withhold this information. In the grand tradition of the father of our country, I cannot tell a lie.
I have been — and still am on occasion, alas — a flip-flopper.
Indeed, if I were to be under subpoena by a House committee and asked the eternal question: “Are you now or have you ever been a flip-flopper?” I would — under penalty of …
It’s the Foreign Policy, Stupid
16 Nov 2011 12:04 am
“It’s the economy, stupid,” some dude named Carville once said. He was referring to what was the correct prescription for winning a presidential election — and it’s been gospel ever since.
He’s probably right. Except when it comes to actually being president, it’s something else altogether. “It’s the foreign policy, stupid” — because day one of being POTUS, you, and basically you alone, determine the foreign policy of the United States of America and much of the future and present of humanity.
And that’s not just because you wake up with an …
A Night at Los Angeles Public Library
5 Nov 2011 12:01 am
We live in times when the different sides in our country speak languages as far apart as Chinese and Italian.
Witness what happened to me earlier this week when I was a panelist at the Los Angeles Public Library’s ALOUD Program on the subject of “Hollywood — Left and Right.” With me on the panel were Mike Farrell, actor and left-wing activist, and Steven Ross, a USC history professor who had just published a book on the topic.
I supposed I had been drafted to play the reverse of liberal Bob Beckel …
Will Capitalism Save Obama?
29 Oct 2011 12:01 am
If the old saw, “No good deed goes unpunished,” is true, or at least has some truth to it, then what about its corollary: “No bad deed goes unrewarded”?
Between promoting the rebranding of PJ Media and eyeballing the seriocomic “occupy” demonstrators down the street from the Capitol, I was puzzling that conundrum while in Washington, D.C., this week.
Something told me a disturbing irony was about to occur. Consider this: The U.S. is an energy powerhouse. We’ve all been reading about this lately, all that shale in the Dakotas, the unlimited …
Daley Says Obama ‘Frustrated’ but Sees Close Re-election
28 Oct 2011 12:01 am
It is a sunny day at the White House, with bright light streaming through the gauzy curtains that cover the patio doors and many windows of Bill Daley’s corner office in the West Wing. And so I try to find some underlying gloom.
Daley, the White House chief of staff, will twice in the course of our hour-long interview refer to the first three years of Barack Obama’s administration as “ungodly” and once as “brutal.”
So do you think, I ask, that President Obama would be satisfied saying, “We did a …
Letter to the Republican Candidates From a Former Democrat
20 Oct 2011 12:01 am
Dear Lady and Gentlemen,
As you all know, we are living in parlous times, the most economically precarious since the Great Depression and the most militarily threatening since the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of our citizens fear this great country of ours is on the edge of collapse. Desperation stalks the land.
Yet if we were to watch the Republican debates, for the most part, all we see is bicker, bicker, bicker, with candidates looking to score points off their opponents. Worse yet, most of these points are based on …
President O’Carter? Nah
14 Oct 2011 12:01 am
The Republicans claim that Barack Obama started it. He was the one, they say, who first compared himself to Jimmy Carter.
Carter has distinguished himself since leaving the presidency, performing notable acts of charity, writing and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But politically he has one word emblazoned on his forehead: Loser.
Carter was the last Democratic president who lost a re-election bid, and Republicans are delighted to compare him to Obama, whom they hope will share the same fate.
An article in the National Review Online began: “In Ron Suskind’s new book, …
GOP Debate Is Wicked
13 Oct 2011 12:01 am
The Republican race has turned into “The Wizard of Oz.” Rick Perry wants a brain. Mitt Romney wants a heart. And any number of candidates are Dorothy, realizing there is no place like home and they should have stayed there.
Herman Cain is seeking courage. He needs the courage to face the fact he is never going to be the Republican nominee, no matter how well he does in the polls. He needs the courage to settle for something far better than the presidency: his own show on Fox.
They all …
Who Will Be the GOP Messiah?
7 Oct 2011 12:03 am
Barack Obama is so doomed politically that he sits behind his desk in the Oval Office with a vulture on each shoulder. And every day at noon, Joe Biden comes in dressed as the Grim Reaper, and they all play gin.
I know this because the Poll Gods tell me this. A recent McClatchy/Marist poll says that 49 percent of voters say they definitely plan to vote against Obama in 2012.
In addition, 52 percent of Americans think the Republican candidate will win (even though they don’t know who the Republican candidate …
Can Obama Legally Kill You?
5 Oct 2011 12:03 am
Should the president have the right to kill you? And if so, under what circumstances?
If you are a U.S. citizen living in the United States and plotting the murder of your neighbors — let’s say they mow their lawns very early every Sunday — it is unlikely a predator drone will launch a Hellfire missile through your kitchen window and take you out.
President Barack Obama, who has become a huge fan of drones, simply would not dream of doing such a thing, and U.S. law would stop him if he …
Uncovered: ‘Obama Phones’ Sold to Buy Drugs and Louis Vuittons
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