There was no one like Roger Simon. That’s said about a lot of people, but in Roger’s case, it happened to be true. He was an original, a rare talent and a journalist who has left behind a rich legacy of reporting and writing. He died Thursday at 78 of pneumonia, leaving a void in the world that can’t be filled.
He and I met as college journalists working for the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. That was 60 years ago. We didn’t know much about reporting, but we were enthusiastic and learned together. Over the subsequent decades, he and I traveled thousands of miles reporting on political events big and small. The other day, I found a notebook from one of our early trips together — to the March on the Pentagon in 1967. Our stories weren’t very memorable; the experience of working together always will be.
His talents were amazing. He was a tough and fearless reporter, a gifted writer, a columnist with a sharp pen and sharper insights, the author of many books, mostly on presidential campaigns. He was witty and insightful as a sometime TV commentator. He was well-decorated for his work, and deservedly so. He scooped up dozens of awards and twice won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award for commentary.
He also was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known — something that everyone who ever encountered him will remember. His wit could be goofy or sarcastic. He made us all laugh even when the times were serious.
He was a Chicago kid, from the South Side. I’d never met someone like him. In college he studied Shakespeare, not journalism. But he was as natural a talent as anyone I’ve ever known in a newsroom. He worked in Chicago journalism at a time when Chicago journalism meant old-fashioned competition, not quite like the Ben Hecht era but scrappy reporting for sure — and for many, after-hours visits to the Billy Goat Tavern.
Writing for the Sun-Times, he made a name for himself in his hometown. At one point there were placards on the delivery trucks with his name and picture. We were all jealous. He roamed widely, covering events in South Africa and the Middle East and the trial of O.J. Simpson. He broke news and wrote with poignancy, edge and flair.
I never knew how he developed such range. He made it look easy, though I knew it wasn’t. He was a craftsman of the first order. David E. Hoffman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and longtime Washington Post journalist, said of Roger on X Thursday that he was “one of the greats of the [David] Broder generation, and probably the best writer among them.” Michael Kinsley, addressing one of Roger’s books, said his writing “balances just about halfway between Hunter Thompson and Theodore White.” Amen to that.
Eventually Roger migrated East, leaving the Sun-Times after it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch. He landed first in Baltimore and later settled into Washington reporting full-time. But he never truly left Chicago. It was in his blood and his DNA. That sensibility carried him through the political campaigns and Washington scandals that he covered.
He wrote for several publications from Washington, among them the Chicago Tribune. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it was Roger who quoted White House press secretary Mike McCurry as explaining that he was pursuing a strategy of “telling the truth slowly.”
Roger was one of the first people to join Politico as it was starting up and was instrumental in giving that publication its voice and early validation. He became their chief political columnist and stayed there until he decided to retire in early 2017.
The accolades have poured in since news of his death became known. They cite all the things I’ve mentioned and more, invariably how kind he was to others on the beat and those with whom he came in contact. He touched a lot of people with his good heart.
What those accolades don’t mention is the adversity that befell him in 2009, when he became terribly ill and eventually lost both legs. My wife Nancy and I were the closest of friends with Roger and his wife Marcia — all kids who met on a college campus who grew up together. What Roger experienced was and is unimaginable to us.
What I remember most about him, from the time it happened until the very end, is that he never complained, never gave off a sense of “why me” or self-pity. He met it head on, learned to walk with prostheses and returned to the political beat.
I watched him tramp through a field in Iowa on those artificial legs, saw him navigate the crowded floor of political conventions, watched him work so normally that some colleagues who had missed the news of his illness were shocked when they learned of his disability.
That was the true character of Roger Simon. As much as I was in awe of his talents, I was even more in awe of his resilience and strength. He will be missed.
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