Documents 'speak for themselves'
3 hours not enough to figure them out

Somewhere right now, Bill Simon is having a real good laugh.

Dozens of journalists spent hours poring over more than 1,000 pages of the GOP gubernatorial candidate's tax returns Monday, and the only thing they learned for sure is that this is why they never became accountants.

If there's a smoking gun anywhere in the thicket of filings, Simon made sure it'd stay well hidden.

His ludicrous ground rules all but guaranteed that nothing would come of the late-afternoon effort but frustration and a serious headache. Among the restrictions:

-- No copies of the two-volume collection of tax returns spanning 1990 to 2000 could leave the room.

-- No cameras or other recording devices were allowed.

-- Only campaign-provided pads could be used for note taking.

Best of all, only two hours were provided to wade through page after page of the most eye-glazing, mind-numbing documents imaginable.

Simon's people invited the press to stay longer if they wanted, and some of us went a whole three hours grappling with the highly complex material. But in the end, there was nothing to do but throw in the towel.

"You get a sense that he really doesn't want anyone to know what's going on, " said Richard Del Monte, a Danville investment adviser. "This was just an exercise in futility."

So what in fact is in all those returns?

The first thing that's apparent is that Simon is doing just fine, thank you very much, with net income over the years typically surpassing $3 million annually.