Former Senator Alan K. Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama's bipartisan commission for reducing the mounting federal debt, figures that with the country in danger of "going to the bow-wows," he has bigger things to worry about than whether "Rush Babe" and other conservative critics are "babbling into the vapors" that he is not Republican enough for the job.

That is Simpson-speak, recognizable to anyone familiar with Mr. Simpson's way of treating serious issues with folksy phrases and sometimes stinging humor during 18 years as a senator from Wyoming. But this is no joke: The Republican Party's insistence that no real Republican would even consider raising taxes is a big reason that many people believe the president's panel will never agree by December on a bipartisan multiyear plan to narrow the growing gap between spending and revenues.

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