For anyone who’s been in Washington for the past year, it’s become increasingly obvious that the only moments of true bipartisanship come when everyone in the city is waiting for Douglas Elmendorf to deliver a CBO report. No matter which persuasion, political junkies universally hunker down with their e-mail accounts and Twitter on constant refresh mode as Washington awaits another all-important judgment from the fiscal overlord of the federal government. Douglas Elmendorf, the CBO economist on whose numbers the world waits, is the very picture of the kind of unlikely, unassuming man whom the geeky business of politics makes into an unwitting celebrity. The New York Times, in an interesting and fair piece, takes a look at the toll the numbers take on the numbers man.
