Friday, June 11, 2010
Roger Simon
When the pundit Roger Simon left our alma mater, the Chicago Sun-Times, and took his carpetbag of political wit to the Baltimore Sun, I sorely missed his column. There are very few political commentators I'd miss, but Roger is one. He never takes his profession and its subjects so seriously he can't laugh at them -- and himself. A skewering by Roger Simon always causes its victims to bleed out, usually without noticing.
Late last year Roger dropped off the Beltway radar. Turns out he had one leg and part of a foot amputated owing to a bout with blood poisoning. But he is now back at work at the Politico site, and his re-inaugural column is a doozy.
It's worth reading just for a great quotation he mined from Nathanael West. That not only demonstrates Roger's hard-nosed courage but also the breadth of his acerbic intellect.
What a guy. What a writer.
(Thanks to Alan Solomon for the heads-up.)
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Makes this able-bodied man ashamed for occasionally moaning about his minor ills. Great column.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of Simon, but that was so good! I kind of know the feeling because I got too many "bless your heart, you poor dear"-s when I became legally blind (good bit of usable sight again in one eye, but no longer able to drive). Yeah, like he says, What choice does he have but to accept it! David Lander (Squiggy on the Laverne & Shirley show) says in his book about MS that he'd like to tell people that he's sorry he cannot live down to their expectations! I love it! Go Roger Simon!!!
ReplyDeleteHenry - the Sun-Times reprinted Roger's column on Sunday. I knew him, back in the day before he went to DC and became a pundit on TV....
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