Incendiary Advice

James Wolcott's recent blog entry about Roger L. Simon, that former alleged liberal who, virtually overnight after 9/11, became a rightwing Bush apologist, had me in stitches. It wasn't so much Wolcott's own words, but those he quoted from blogger Tbogg's post, "Neocon-ism is the new gay":

"TBogg quotes generously from the maudlin introspections of these wallflower neocons, arriving at the familiar fedora of Roger L. Simon, Michael Ledeen's favorite leprecaun. After Simon's midget grandstanding about "the tragic dilemma" that besets us all, whatever that is, TBogg comments:

"Now I may not be as 'emotionally or morally sophisticated' as Roger L Simon, but then I didn't spend the afternoon of 9/11 flushing away my beliefs and convictions in a piddle-stained panic. So please spare me the 'cojones' and 'cowardice' locker room speech from the man who is one car backfire away from turning into a fedora floating in a puddle of pee."

Harsh? Yes. But more importantly, hilarious.

Simon, aside from being a self-aggrandizing jerk, is known for constant drumbeating on war and fear of flying. Now, I share the latter problem, but due to altitude, not al-Qaeda attacks.

Reading his stuff, one gets the impression he'd send his own grandma into Iraq if she could totter around dressed in fatigues, her poor arthritic arm barely shouldering a rifle. And if you're not willing to send your own geriatric relative along, well, then you -and your grandma - are cowards.

Doesn't this game grow tiresome?

Blow the whistle on Bush's illegal wiretapping? Why, you're a treasonous evildoer!

Disagree with Bush's policies? Why, you're a Bush Hater®!

Can't find your way clear to how 9/11 begat the Iraq war when there was no connection? You, dear friend, must then be a coward!


In the screed inspiring Tbogg's priceless vision of floating fedoras, Simon refers to his current beliefs -- i.e. his vociferous post-9/11 support of the neocon agenda.

Since when did core values become the new psyche accessory, altered to mesh with whatever mood strikes? Only a slavering, shallow, buyable schill has a value system that includes time frame caveats.

Current values. Maybe he means the kind that change direction with moon cycles and extremely shallow tides.