Doobie Button, Doobie Day Machine

[mike j]

Ex-Doobie Brother is Missile Defense Ace
NY Post
Monday, May 14, 2001

WASHINGTON — Studio musician Jeff "Skunk" Baxter
started out strumming for Steely Dan, then played
funky
guitar solos for the classic rockers The Doobie
Brothers. 

But now, the son of the '70s drug culture is advising
the government on its nuclear defense strategy. 

Baxter is a self-taught missiles expert who heads to
the Pentagon several times a year to get briefed on
Son of Star Wars, the defense plan backed by President
Bush. 

"The guy is absolutely brilliant," says Lt. Col. Rick
Lehner, spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization, of the floppy-mustached, 52-year-old
college dropout. 

"You can get into a conversation with Jeff Baxter over
the most arcane scientific details of ballistic
theory, intercept solutions, command and control. I'm
lost in the first five minutes." 

Baxter, a studio musician who's backed the likes of
Ringo Starr, Sting and Barbra Streisand, joined the
Star Wars civilian advisory board after writing a
paper on the subject in his spare time. The paper was
passed on by a friend, U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
(R-Calif.), whom he met at former California Gov. Pete
Wilson's inaugural while chatting about human rights
in Burma. 

"The next thing I know, I'm advising members of
Congress and the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization at the Pentagon," Baxter says. 

The rocker - who refuses to say why he got dubbed
"Skunk" - says he had no trouble teaching himself
about Star Wars because "I've taken the time to study
it. There's different ways to learn. That's what I
love about America. 

"This country has been very good to me, and I think I
owe it at least the responsibility of being
responsible. I've just picked missile defense because
the possible consequences of not dealing with it are
frightening," Baxter told The Post from his home in
Los Angeles. 

The civilian advisory panel's role is mostly to help
educate the public rather than to tell military folks
how to build futuristic weapons, but Lehner - an old
Steely Dan fan - says Baxter brings something special
to the table as a rocker. 

"His particular expertise seems to be in things like
acoustics, electronics, some advanced technology with
regard to sound," Lehner says. 

"Acoustics and sound may play a role in what we call
discrimination - being able to distinguish a warhead
from a decoy - and also some advanced control and
command-type work." 

Meanwhile, in the background, Baxter's other life is
clamoring. 

He's home for a few days between musical road trips,
trying to find time to do the laundry and juggling
studio sessions. 

Three impatient guys are demanding to know why he's
holding up the recording session. But still, he wants
to talk about Star Wars. 

"Israel is deploying an anti-ballistic system. India
has leased one from Russia. And so, if we're crazy to
think about this, why are other people doing it?" he
says. 

Baxter recalled how he explained Star Wars to The
Washington Post recently. 

"If you're in a room with two people aiming guns at
each other, it's rather easy to keep track of who has
the guns. But if the room begins to fill up with
people holding guns,you might want to consider the
possibility of wearing a bulletproof vest," he said. 

The Washington Post gossip column laughed that off as
the kind of riffs "that make the groupies swoon,"
adding: "We're not sure we understand, but it has a
good beat, and you can dance to it." 

But Baxter, unruffled, says he meant that once upon a
time, only the Soviet Union and the United States had
nuclear weapons, but now, lots of other countries do,
including rogue states, so a missile-defense shield is
needed. 

Baxter doesn't want to talk about his own politics,
but it's no surprise to learn that he's a Republican.
He even briefly hired a campaign consultant last year
to mull tossing his beret into the ring in a race for
Congress, following in Sonny Bono's footsteps. 

After all, if Minnesota can elect a pro wrestler named
"The Body" as governor, why not a congressman named
"Skunk"? 

The consultant, Dale Neugebauer, told the Los Angeles
Times that Skunk was a natural because "the rock-star
image plays to the younger voters, and he was in a
band that was very familiar to baby boomers." 

At the missile-defense center, spokesman Lehner -
who's known Baxter for years - says he thinks a lot of
people have trouble believing a rock star could care
about
missile defense because it's not a liberal issue. 

"Why is it deemed totally acceptable and rational for
a rock star or movie star to be very active in ‘Save
the Rainforest' and not active in missile defense?" he
asks. 

"People think of something they might call a
conservative cause being out of sync with a celebrity.
It's fine for Alec Baldwin to be in favor of the rain
forest, but it's somehow weird for Jeff Baxter to be
for missile defense." 


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