In announcing his retirement, Sen. Alan Simpson said he no longer had “the old fire in the belly” for politics. The use of “fire in the belly” to describe political commitment has become a cliche more desperately in need of retirement than Simpson himself: A Nexis search reveals that the phrase has been used in a political context 955 times since 1976, to describe everyone from Harvard graduate students to Pat Schroeder and Paul Tsongas. Enough already.
