Beyond Politics

New York, NY
Season 1, Episode 4

GUEST: Alan Simpson, Senator (RET. R-WY)
HOST: Stan Pottinger

ALAN SIMPSON: Your sitcoms show it's just a nation of smartasses. Smart-assed kids, smart-assed parents-- the soaps consist of the horniest on the entire planet, scratching and belching and poking. The entertainment industry consists of vacuous crap, and it's always about dumb parents and smart-assed kids. The ads show kids with their cell phone-- "Mom, I want my cell phone . Okay dear, we don't want to cross you." You know, then a saw a kid four years old say to his old man-- he said, "You can't have that," and he said-- to the dad-- and the dad said, "Oh, I hope you won't ever say that to me again." Hell, I'd have smacked him so he'd have hit the Statue of Liberty. If we're going to have a tyrant in my home, it wasn't going to be a four year old; it was going to be me.

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STAN POTTINGER: So Senator, your father Milward Simpson was both a governor of Wyoming and a senator from Wyoming. Is politics the family business?

ALAN SIMPSON: Yeah, it was something we talked about at the dinner table. Dad was a Republican, and yet in our home we had the Decca record collection of Paul Robson, who was a most amazing American who's-- who went to Russia, went to the Soviet Union and came back and said that they treated blacks better in the Soviet Union than they did in America. He, being black, was then crucified by his own people-- they took his passport. But his music, his voice, he did Othello; he did Porgy & Bess, Old Man River. So in my house I learned union songs like I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night. And I sing that in a Democrat group, and they say, "Where did you get that?" I said, "I know it by heart."

POTTINGER: You ever sing it at a Republican convention?

SIMPSON: No. They don't know what it is. It's about organizing. And anyway, no-- we talked about it, and my dad was in the legislature too as a state legislator. My grandfather was in the Wyoming legislature, my brother.

POTTINGER: There are some people and some polls that suggest that there is a downward trend of public service among the elites of America-- people who have great education, access to privilege and information-- that they're going more into private life, staying away from politics more than in the past. Do you think that's true? And, if so, why?

SIMPSON: Well, I think there's-- one of it is surveillance of your life. It's interesting to me how the media will prattle about the precious right of privacy-- how we see it diminishing-- and when you're in public life, the media is the one that's tearing you to bits. You're (unintelligible) back-- what did you do when you were 18? What did you do when you were 30? And I like to ask them always, "What did you do when you were 18 and 30?" And they say, "Well, you don't understand. You see, we're part-- nobody knows us." I say, "Look, more people know you than know their elected representative." But I think it's the fact that people who are successful often have, like all the rest of us, they've made mistakes. They were doing pot or they were arrested for something. With me it was easy. I'd been on federal probation for two years for shooting mailboxes-- so I said that before I ran. Then I got in a fight with a cop, which is not smart, and that-- that landed me in the clink for a night. I told them that. Hell, that got me votes. People don't want to come forward because they've got some turkey's in their cage and they don't-- and they're successful and they've come this far without anybody "knowing," except themselves or maybe their family or spouses. And they going to think, "Why should I put myself up to that?-- that I had a DWI when I was at Delaware or, you know, or did something, you know, pretty bad.

POTTINGER: You were in the military. You were in the service. Very few people in the Senate or the House of Representatives have served in the military. Tell what it adds to your knowledge and your understanding of issues of when we go to war and when we send people-- men and women to die-- to have had service versus not.

SIMPSON: Well, I think that you have a better view of what the military really, really is. It's hours and hours of training and boredom and standing in lines and regimentation. It's the first time in your life you can't do what you want. It's a good thing. Every kid in the world at 18 or 19 or 20 should be in a situation where they can't talk their way out of something or BS their way out of something and have to do something or else they get court marshaled. That sounds harsh, but it's not. But I think it's the fact that you're trained to kill. You're not trained to hand out candy to children in Baghdad. You're trained to save your own life and destroy somebody else's for your country.

POTTINGER: What was your first job in politics in-- back home in Wyoming?

SIMPSON: When my dad ran in 54 I was active in his campaign then went off the army. And he was elected governor. And then in-- and then he was defeated for re-election because he was not in favor of capitol punishment. Now imagine the Wyoming governor not in favor of capitol punishment.

POTTINGER: Let me ask you this though. You've never lost an election, and you did lose your position, I gather, in what?-- '94 as whip. Was that a loss that hurt? Did that give you any sense of what it's like to lose an election?

SIMPSON: With me, I'd been the assistant leader for ten years, and I never wanted to be leader. I had told Dole that; I had told my party. I said, "I don't want to be leader because I've seen what it takes. I can't give-- my life isn't that involved." I mean I've seen Byrd and Mitchell and Dole do it. And so I never wanted it. So I was, you know, kind of hazardous position if I never wanted to move up. And other people who like to move up-- and Trent was-- Lott-- was very, very ambitious. He told me he was going to run, and he did. And it's like usual, you think, "Well, I've got about a three-point spread there, and he beat me by one." But at that point I was getting ready to get out anyway because my best friend of all political life was George Herbert Walker Bush. I'd known him since '62. I loved to be there while-- I enjoyed Carter; Reagan was just the top of the game, and we had a lot of fun-- go to the White House and tell stories. Then George and Barbara, wonderful-- and then Clinton came and I got to know them. But I knew that nothing would ever be like that again. So here if you took another six-year term. So it was factor in getting out, but I didn't go suck my thumb. I just grabbed Trent and I said, "We're going to go out right now. We're not going to wait a day. I'm going to go out and tell them you're the new assistant leader, and then we're going to go over the press corp. and tell them that." And I got it all done in minutes.

POTTINGER: You used the word "fun," and you're one of the people in Washington who knows how to have fun but also treat politics seriously. How do you do that? Is that-- is fun going out of politics today?

SIMPSON: Well, last night was a wonderful function at the Senate where for John Brough, a Democrat, and I MC'ed the retirement of Jim Jeffords and Paul Sarbanes-- wonderful, wonderful guy-- and Bill Frist and Mark Dayton. Bi-partisan, warm, wonderful evening-- Harry Reid spoke, and then Frist spoke, and there was a lot of laughter about how well they get along, you know-- but they do. And-- but fun, you know, where a jocular approach to it like, you know, don't be so serious. My mother taught me that humor was the universal solvent against the abrasive elements of life. And every time I had humor I'd get through anything. When I'd lose my humor, man I got eaten by rats. I mean I-- there were times when they were, you know, the toast of the town and then toast. I've done all that.

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POTTINGER: You talked about being in a room with majority leader, minority leader, democrats and republicans, liberals, conservatives-- people respecting each other and talking. That's a shocking disclosure that runs against the conventional wisdom that's presented to America today-- that there is total partisan animosity. What's the truth of that and how do we get back to a certain amount of civility?

SIMPSON: Well, I think we never will as long as there's 24/7 news. No life is examined 24/7. Some of our people sleep. So when you've got 24/7 news and then every hour is they highlight of the hour, and usually it's just crap. There's nothing there. But it's always controversy. It's controversy, conflicts, and confusion-- that's what the media thrives on, not clarity. If you are a media person reporting on the congress, legislating is the driest form of human endeavor. There is nothing dramatic about amending a bill, hearings, conference committees-- you know-- the doing the stuff you do. There's nothing dramatic about that. And so you find something in the mix of a day, a word, phrase-- and that's the news of the day. Meanwhile, you're cranking it out. It takes six to eight years to pass a major piece of legislation, doesn't matter what it is. And that's so everybody in America can get in and get their voice heard. Six to eight years to pass any-- and people say, "This is a sense of immediacy." Everything is immediate. The immediate gratification, immediate this, immediate that. And that's not the way legislating works.

POTTINGER: Well, you know, we've had a member of the Supreme Court on the show, members of the legislature, the executive branch. Everybody has exactly that same story to tell-- namely, it's dry-- the real guts of what we do is dry and boring, and it's very hard to get across to our public the importance of what we do because it's not-- unless it's full of drama and conflict. How do we get away from that so that we once again appreciate what's important to us as an electorate?

SIMPSON: Well, you're doing a good job of it if you're doing this and asking people who are supposedly responsible and responsive to answer honestly questions about what they do. And you'll know the ones that aren't responding to you or who are shading it. But you have to-- the transparency is a critically important thing. And I always had a rule-- when I get my foot in my mouth-- I had a rule, "When they're after my butt, answer the phone." Because the biggest mistake you can make in politics or business is to make an error and then gather your marvelous staff together to see how to spin it. That has not worked for anybody. It looks like it works, but it doesn't work because it's phony. I would pick up the phone and say, "Here I am." And they'd say, "Did you say that about Peter Arnett?" And I said, "Yeah, I did." "Oh, my God! I can't believe it."

POTTINGER: Tell us about the Peter Arnett issue.

SIMPSON: Oh, my God! I don't think I'll (unintelligible). Well, I tell you, it is important. Because here is an interesting thing. It was an interview called "Off the Record," but it's all on the record. They asked me about Peter Arnett in Baghdad in '91, and I said, "Well, hasn't anybody got this figured out? Everybody's left. ABC left, NBC left, CBS left. The only one left is Peter Arnett. So why didn't he leave? And the reason he didn't leave is because everything he said on the news was-- at the bottom said, "Our reporter is under difficult circumstances." What he means is he was censored. But he stayed, and he became, in my mind, a tool of the Iraqi government. And I called him a sympathizer for what he had done in North Vietnam. And then I got in deeper, and I tell you they cut me to ribbons. They said, "Did you say that?" I said, "I did." I said, "I think he's a sympathizer." Well now, and I got eaten alive, and then he came to town about a few months later. And I saw him, because he'd interviewed me once before. I said, "You've got more friends in this town than I do." And I said, "You know, it was unfortunate." And he said, "Well, you know, let me show you my new gal friend." And he was all, he was up. Now the real irony of that, after I got blasted-- this time, when he went down in flames, just two years ago or three? He was accused of being non-patriotic and a sympathizer, and he lost his job. They fired him. Guess what? I got calls from the New York Times and the Washington Post saying, "Did you hear about Peter Arnett?" And I said, "I did." "Well, do you have anything to say?" And I said, "Well, what did he say?" "Well, he said he thought he'd ruined his-- hurt his reputation. He felt very badly about it, and it was unfortunate and so on." I said, "Just remove his name and put my name in there." "Well, don't you have anything more to say?" I said, "Wait a minute. Aren't you the same people that tore my butt off nine years ago? And now you want me to bury your guy deeper in the ground." I said, "What kind of phony bastards are you?" The guy from the New York Times hung up. The Washington Post guy stayed on. And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Just what I said pal. You want me to pack dirt in his face, and when I was getting it you-- he was the toast of the town." I said, "You guys are jackals." That was interesting. I did say that. Isn't that wonderful? I felt good.

POTTINGER: Yeah, well that's-- feels good right now doesn't it?

SIMPSON: I think I could just jump up.

POTTINGER: Let me ask you about your friend-- another friend of yours from Wyoming, the Vice President, Dick Cheney. You've know each other for many years. What do you think of Dick?

SIMPSON: Well, he's a wonderful friend; he's a wonderful human being and a warm, wise, witty guy. They've tried to demonize him. He's not a demon. He's a conscientious guy. It would be good if he could talk with you. I think he might even think about that.

POTTINGER: Let's talk about the press for a moment. The press has a difficult job, as we all know, trying to be skeptical but not cynical, trying to be loyal to America without being a-- or patriotic without being a suck up. How do you-- what's the fair way to-- that you would advise the press to try to maneuver between these alternate goals?

SIMPSON: Well, I think I can't give advice. I just think that ego overpowers you brain sometimes. And to think that, you know, a reporter or someone or an anchorman or something is got some kind of sage wisdom that nobody else has-- when the American people now they're getting paid a wad of money and they've got a limo waiting outside, and they're trying to pretend they're speaking for America really is a stretch. It's not about news; it's about entertainment. It is who can make it more dramatic. Look at all the-- the day long is spent saying, "Tonight at six you're going to hear so and so." Well, we are-- the world will end at six tonight. Will I want to be there for that? And that's the kind of stuff they go through in that. And the bottom line is controlling the media now, and that's sad because there are so many wonderful people in. I was interesting when I wrote the book Sticking it in Their Ear, and they'd say, "Well, what is it you have against the media?" I said, if it took-- "Oh, do you want to curb or limit or restrict us?" I said, "I haven't the slightest idea to curb or limit or restrict you. I just intend to stick it in one ear and out the other because-- "

POTTINGER: That was not the ear you just stuck it in.

SIMPSON: "-- it's the first amendment. It belongs to me too." And it's interesting how they'll try to, you know, to say, "Well, you shouldn't say that." And I am not (unintelligible). I wouldn't do a thing to the media. They- they're-- I don't need to do a thing. They're doing it to themselves. The American people are tired of it. They have-- they're lower than politicians.

POTTINGER: Yeah. Polls suggest that politicians and media people are similar.

SIMPSON: They're both down-- which is very sad. Democracy suffers when two great engines like politics and journalism are down at the lowest rung.

POTTINGER: If politics is not beanbag, or it's a contact sport, as you have said, what part does the press or should the press play in that game?

SIMPSON: Well, they can't be cheerleaders, but they don't have to write opinion pieces in the news column. If you're going to write-- if you're a reporter and you want to write your opinion, or your bias is clear-- and you can spot that-- get over in op-ed page. Just report the news and get both sides. We have the biggest paper in Wyoming, daily has Molly Ivins on one column and Ann Coulter on the other. And people are irritated as hell about both of them. (unintelligible) had that woman on there. And I think it's great. And the cartoons are sticking it to George one day and then sticking it to-- and that's-- people sort that out, but you'd be surprised that people will write and say, "Get rid of that person." Or, don't listen, you know, listen to Hitler. Hitler-- who would want to listen to him, but you could have gone and listened and then got up and given him the raspberries like Spike Jones, you know, "Der Führer's face (makes mouth noise)." You know? And you know, I-- and that's why I think we make a big mistake in government. You won't talk to Syria, won't talk to Iran, won't talk to North Korea. What the hell do you get by not talking to somebody, your adversary. Because the ice treatment, giving somebody the ice treatment destroys marriages, destroys countries. It's saying, "I'm not talking to your mother. Tell her I'm ready to eat. She's over there." That's wonderful-- what a stupid thing. They give each other-- we should be talking. And don't think the Iranians don't want to talk now, because they do. Because if Iraq goes up in flames, they're country's going to more affected than any other country in arena if Iraq goes up in civil war. Not us.

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POTTINGER: As a kid you were familiar with the concept of sin. What happened to it and, more importantly, what moral standard has replaced it?

SIMPSON: I don't know. We all have an image of something that is, you know, sinful. But now it's just-- it's up to you. It's-- you're the human's free spirit, and it's your own brand of sin is not somebody else's. I think it came in the '60s-- don't trust anybody over 30, you know, swear, curse, use the f-word and shock people. And yet, you know, I was watching that. I wasn't that age, but I thought the musical Hair was tremendous, used to play the music and even subscribed to Avante Gard until the postman saw the cover of it one time. I figured Cody's too small. And somebody left a tube of Bearing Cigar with marijuana in it in mailbox-- said, "Try this and Alice's cookies." And I thought, "I've got to get out of here." And I never tried that, but I can't find it. Ann and I will die and they'll find it in our home. It's dry now. But we never tried the cookies, because we never smoked, much.

POTTINGER: Right. It'll never get you the trouble shooting mailboxes got you in.

SIMPSON: No. I don't know.

POTTINGER: Is lying in politics more prevalent or less today than 100 years ago, 50 years ago?

SIMPSON: You know, Daniel Webster, a great American hero, was passing banking legislation on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and he was under the employment of the Bank of Boston. I mean that-- I think that's a conflict. Now, it may not be, but I think it is.

POTTINGER: Probably is.

SIMPSON: They caned another guy right there in the chamber, just smacked him over the head with a stick. He died later. We don't do any of that. A guy called another one a "rancid tub of lard," which is not exactly a term of--

POTTINGER: Was that last week, or was it-- ?

SIMPSON: No. It was too weeks. No. It was years and years ago, but--

POTTINGER: Well, that sort of passion-- we're really more constrained today than that. We don't get that passionate on the floor of the senate do we?

SIMPSON: Well no, because now we have political correctness. And I want to tell you about that. I think political correctness is like wearing duct tape over your mouth, and I'll tell you why. If you really are a person, down in your gut, that has bias and prejudice and ugly things and pretend that you're not, it's my opinion that that surfaces somewhere. Because you can't pack it down. It comes out like a fissure through a volcano. And that's why I think there's a lot of rage. I think people-- they finally will vent in something that hasn't a thing to do with it. They'll vent at a city council meeting or they'll vent on the road. I just think that political correctness has gone too far. And--

POTTINGER: Will it run its course, or is here forever?

SIMPSON: It will. Sure. No. Everything runs its course, at least so far in America. Whether its, you know, Prohibition or whatever it is. It runs its course.

POTTINGER: You are a brave and unusual member of the Republican Party-- more supportive of abortion rights, gay rights, civil rights than many of your colleagues, though the party has a lot of variety in it. How does that square? What does that mean to you when you're in the middle of a party caucus?

SIMPSON: Well, the interesting thing was-- now this is fascinating-- I never served in 18 years with anybody in the Wyoming political structure, Herschler a democrat, Sullivan a democrat, Wallab, you now, Cheney, Thomas, Enzie [ph?], Cuvan [ph?]-- all from back to forward democrat and republican alike on abortion. I always said, "Abortion is a deeply intimate and personal decision, and out of respect for each other it shouldn't be part of a platform." I don't know anybody running up and down the streets with a sign that says, "Have an abortion." Nobody is for abortion for God's sake. But at some point in life it's not for a male legislator to decide that issue. That'll get you in a lot of trouble. And so, that was my feeling and-- but we never talked about it. Never imagined, with those 18 years and those wonderful figures, democrat and republican alike, and we never talked about it once because we respected each other. And that's what we ought to go back to instead of this being a baby-killer. You know, I mean I'd listen to that for about 20 seconds, and I'd say, "Lady, I don't have to take that crap from you." "Hah, well I don't think I'll ever vote for you." I said, "I wouldn't want your vote. Go get some other people. Get organized." I just try to keep it on a human level instead of some, you know, where you just get all frothy at the mouth, you know, and oh my God they're all, you know (makes mouth noise). I don't go for that. Show me a 100-percenter and I'll show you a guy I want to stay away from. They usually got gas, ulcers, heartburn, and they smell. And they're called "seethers." There's a difference between a "seeker," which we all should be, and a "seether." A seether is just-- you can see it-- their neck sticking out, you know, and they, "I'd just like to ask you a question sir." And I was thinking-- and you always (unintelligible) to say, "Looks like you're really kind of intense." "Yeah, yeah I wanted to ask you about what you're . . ." Oh, I've got to quit doing that.

POTTINGER: How do we get back to having the people who are elected make decisions and not having lobbyists, organizations and staff making decisions?

SIMPSON: Well, you do it face-to-face. But the problems now, and the real problem of why you can't do face-to-face is every one of those guys there last night at that wonderful program have got to be out raising bucks every day to run. And they're on the phone all day, they go to a separate location off the hill so they're not in a government building-- go to the democrat headquarters or republican, spend the day, you know, calling people for money. Money has polluted the system. You don't see anybody because you're home raising money or you're in New York raising money, Detroit raising money. So Bradley and I and Warren Rudman and Bob Kerry are the co-chairs of a national group called Americans for Campaign Reform. And we're at it. You can't just sit by. I'm more active now with things that I couldn't get done in the Senate that we can get done now. But Bradley's a dear friend and a very bright and wonderful American. If everybody's just going to sit aside, well then you can't just-- especially the intellectuals-- can't just sit aside and make fun of people who sully themselves in politics. Because I tell you, when politics fails you have anarchy, and in anarchy the first people they get rid of the intellectuals.

POTTINGER: Senator, thank you so much for coming on Plum TV and talking to us today.

SIMPSON: Well, it's great. I think it's great what you do. And dialogue, and civil dialogue is the key-- and people are turning off those other programs. They really-- they can't stand to see people just, you know, hacking back and forth, cutting off the guy you invited to come. I just-- I don't do those programs.