"his association with Cheney's infamous energy task force of Spring 2001 has also always aroused my suspicion."

He has repeatedly denied this associated. He has "advised" the Bush campaign on energy, but he was not part of the secret task force.

Not that I'm that much of a Simmons fan, however. He keeps saying Iraq was about WMD. I admire his energy analysis, but I would not enjoy being in the same room as he.

How much are these denials worth, though?  That is obviously a function of how rock-solid one's overall trust in the man is.

Overall, Simmons' connections to the power elite and their foreign policy machinations remain decidedly murky - at least to myself, and probably to most other people who hail him for his almost unheard-of forthrightness on energy issues for someone of his social background.

I think that Peak Oil advocates have been too quick to give Simmons a "free pass" with regard to his murky connections to foreign policy machinations on this account, though.  For Simmons truly to live up to the hero-status that he has unquestioningly been accorded within the Peak-Oil crowd, he needs to divest himself of these morally compromising murky connections completely.

I only care if he's right or wrong with respect to the issue of peak.