Obama's Appointing Alan Simpson to Co-Chair the Long-Run Deficit Commission Was a Really Big Mistake

"He never met a budget-busting proposal by a Republican president that he did not work like a dog to pass, or a deficit-reducing proposal by a Democratic president that he would not move heaven and earth to try to stop," I would say. "Why, in the Name of the One Who Was, Is, and Is to Come, would you ever name a budget arsonist like Alan Simpson to run your budget fire department--your deficit commission?"

I would be assured that he had changed--that he had come face-to-face with reality on...