Everything That Is Wrong With Simpson-Bowles

ESQUIRE - THE POLITICS BLOG November 29, 2012 By: Charles P. Pierce Everything that's wrong with how we are currently discussing the country's economic situation can be summed up in two words — Simpson-Bowles. (It can also be summed up in three words — Meet The Press — but that's another topic for another day.) The president made several huge blunders in setting up the Simpson-Bowles commission in the first place, the most obvious being the exhumation of Alan Simpson, whose only obvious contribution to American politics was to be, to paraphrase what Diane Keaton says in Manhattan, Bob Dole without the wit. Most famously, Simpson was one of the premier players in the sliming of Anita Hill in the service of installing Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court. But, somehow, in the bizarre confabulations of the Beltway, Simpson was reckoned to be a charming old grump who was willing to t...