Former Sens. Alan Simpson, Tom Harkin once nearly came to blows

Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) divulges that he was once so totally ticked at Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that the two almost took each other to town: “Old Harkin’s eyes were spouting fire. He mumbled and smirked and laid a couple of good verbal shots on me and left the chamber.” 

The revelations of near-fisticuffs are part of an upcoming book, Shooting From the Lip, penned by Simpson’s longtime staffer, Donald Loren Hardy.

Between tales of exchanging obscenities with a rival, cracking jokes about toilet paper and being concerned about a sticky white substance on your pants, the bio at times seems it could be the memoir of Beavis or Butt-Head rather than a respected lawmaker.

The book is based largely on the ex-Senate majority whip’s 19-volume diary he kept while in office.

While there are too many incredibly un-PC tidbits to list here, some other highlights include the Wyoming Republican’s tendency to multi-task — getting dressed for an evening event while brushing his teeth:

“One evening he was walking out of his office when he looked down to discover a large blob of white toothpaste hanging from the zipper of his pants. ‘My God,’ he gasped. “What if I hadn’t seen that? Can you imagine what people would think?’ ”

Another excerpt details a crude joke Simpson made about toilet paper that then-President Reagan apparently got a kick out of.

And, back to that fight with Harkin, which ultimately ended peacefully, Simpson writes, “Harkin kept us up late last night with his antics. … He grinds my rump.”

An open discussion of rump-grinding — now this is the stuff a gossip columnist’s dreams are made of! 

Shooting From the Lip is set to be released in September.

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