"Bob Simon was everything Brian Williams is not."

[madfloridian]

I love that he took up motorcycle riding again at age70.

Perry on Politics: Cynics should look no further than Simon and Carr


Bob Simon (Associated Press photo)

Bob Simon was everything Brian Williams is not.

He didn't need to lie about his wartime experiences, for his experiences were real and long-standing. "Vietnam is where he first began covering warfare, and he gave his firsthand reporting from virtually every major battlefield around the world since," his colleague at CBS News, Scott Pelley, said the night he died.

He began reporting in Vietnam in 1971. He covered the final days of that tragic war and was aboard one of the last helicopters to leave the city before it fell to North Vietnamese troops in 1975. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, he and his crew were captured by Iraqi forces and held for 40 days, during which they were beaten daily with canes and nearly starved by their captors. During one torture session, he said, an Iraqi captain forced his mouth open, spit in it, and called him a Jew (which he was, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brandeis University). He said after his release that those 40 days of torture were "the most searing experience of my life."

He won four Peabodys and 27 Emmys for his reporting, probably a record.

Mr. Simon's affinity for adventure never seemed to wane, the Washington Post said. At the age of 70, he took up riding a motorcycle again. In the summer of 2013, he rode from East Hampton to Maine, and back again -- all in one day.

Simon in an interview with the Archive of American Television got so angry that he used a curse word about Bush and Iraq. About 29 minutes in.

A real treasure is his award winning interview in 2011 with Curveball.

At the end, Curveball walked out rather than answer any more of Simon's pointed questions.

RIP Bob Simon.

[madfloridian]

1. More from Bob Simon on his worries about war lies.

http://billmoyers.com/content/buying-the-war/

In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. “I mean we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,” he tells Moyers. “Saddam…was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn’t believe it for an instant.”

[FloriTexan]

2. Kicked and Recommended...

Look at all them hearts there!

p.s. Hey, I have some hearts too! Hmmm. Wonder where they came from

[madfloridian]

3. Hey there.

No hearts from me. I had already just made my yearly donation. Must have been a admirer.



Thanks for the rec.

[KoKo]

4. Thank You for this Post. I stopped watching MSM awhile back but, he did stand out

as one of the good ones who knew his stuff from experience and his voice will be sorely missed from what's left of MSM reporting.

Brian Williams always struck me as puffed up, hand picked report what "you are told" type. Bob Simon never came across that way to me when I used to watch MSM.

[madfloridian]

5. I get my news from the internet mostly now.

I get my weather from Brighthouse BayNews9...the 24 hour news show.

I did appreciate Bob Simon.