Phil Gramm's 'whiners' comment causes John McCain a headache

Lord save the presidential candidates from their allies, Chapter Two.

Last week, it was Barack Obama who saw his carefully crafted speech on patriotism overshadowed because backer Wesley Clark had made a controversial statement about John McCain getting shot down as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

Today, it was McCain's turn to watch as his recent effort to show he understands the economic hard times that many Americans are experiencing got stepped on by an old friend and top advisor.

In an interview with the Washington Times, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm termed the current economic slowdown "a mental recession."

He added: "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

And then he showed why his own presidential bid in 1996 quickly crashed and burned, calling the United States "a nation of whiners."

Obama, campaigning in Virginia, recognized the gift that had been handed him. Referencing the "mental recession" remark, he said Gramm "didn’t say this, but I guess what he meant was, 'It’s a figment of your imagination, these high gas prices.' "

He continued: "Sen. Gramm then deemed the United States, and I quote 'a nation of whiners.' "

Milking the moment for all it was worth as his crowd both laughed and booed, Obama delivered a punch line that gave the cable networks one of the day's prime sound-bites: "I want all of you to know that America already has one Dr. Phil, we don’t need another one."

McCain distanced himself from his blunt-spoken supporter at a news conference in Michigan.

"I don’t agree with Sen. Gramm," he said. "I believe the person in Michigan that just lost his job isn’t suffering from a mental recession. I believe the mother ... who is trying to get enough money to educate her children, isn’t whining. America is in great difficulty.

"Phil Gramm does not speak for me," McCain said. "I speak for me. I strongly disagree."

McCain later came up with his own sound-bite. Asked whether Gramm was a contender to head the Treasury Department in a McCain administration, he cracked: "I think that Sen. Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that."

Gramm apparently has no interest in another government job, because he ...

... stoutly stood by his analysis.

"I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true," he told the Washington Post.

He then elaborated.

"When I said we've become a nation of whiners, I'm talking about our leaders. I'm not talking about our people," he said. "We've got every kind of excuse in the world about oil prices -- we've got speculators, the oil companies to blame -- but too many people don't have a program to get on with a job of producing."

"If you listen to our leaders, we can't compete against Mexico, for God's sake," Gramm added. "If they don't think we can compete against Mexico, who can we compete against?"

About those GOP efforts to woo the Latino vote...

-- Michael Muskal and Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

Comments

[dave]

(mink: a semiaquatic weasellike animal, particularly of north america; minsk: capital of belarus; mccain: self-appointed comedian and preemptively-declared, presumptuously-presumptive candidate for president of the neocon fraction of the republican party.)

[Jeugenen]

OBAMA UNITING AND PARADIGM SHIFTING IN THE AMERICAN CULTURAL WAR
Obama is politically uniting Blacks and Whites, Christians and Muslims, Kennedy Liberals and Reagan Conservatives; the Podhoretz Neo-Cons and the Leiberman Neo-Libs are screaming, “Crucify him!”; and the World is singing, “God Bless America”.

[an theist]

Republicans.

What a total bunch of jerkoffs...

[Marc from San Diego]

So now we slam the Mexicans too? What is with these McCain people? No to 4 or 8 more years of this stuff - it is time make a change - so we can stop whining, I guess. Honestly, it's not so much me but my bank account is making funny noises lately - getting drained for gas, energy and food.

[Democrats 08]

Phil Gramm is a typical carbon copy clone of the out of touch, dated, ignorant Republican party. He sits there on his fat rich butt with our tax money acting as if he is entitled to spit on the American people in a time of REPUBLICAN spawned economic crisis. What is wrong with this picture? Losers like him, Republicans, should all be APOLOGIZING for the economic disaster they have created for the American people. They shouldn't be instead criticizing the American people as being weak when Republicans like Gramm are the ones who are responsible for the HUGE mess this country is now in. Time to CLEAN HOUSE and vote ALL of these ignorant, anti American Republicans OUT, power to the people.

[master from shamrock]

Sen. Gramm then deemed the United States, and I quote 'a nation of whiners.

this guy live under the rock we losing jobs and he say we are whiners, let put him in our shoes lost jobs, losing homes high gas prices i bet he's the first one to whine

[ignatzh]

Any middle or "working" class person who votes for these out of touch, narcissistic old reptiles has, after the past 8 years, to be a complete idiot. McCain can continue to try to distance himself from his "advisers" as much as he likes, but one can only hope that he won't be able to keep his cozy relationship with the press forever. Nobody seems to remember his role in the Keating 5 scandal, in which he showed his true colors as a friend of the rich.

[crcg]

Check out Gramm's ties to Enron and oil speculators. Google him and his wife Wendy, and see what you find. He is the last person McCain should be listening to on anything. He is a disgrace. And he has the nerve to call Americans "whiners". Just wow.

The fact that this character is a top economc advisor to McCain speaks volumes about what will happen to the country if McCain is elected. Vote like your future and your families future depended on it. It just might.

[Badtux]

Record foreclosures. Food pantries for the indigent seeing a massive surge in people needing food assistance. Record numbers of people without health insurance coverage. Over 500,000 people lost their jobs over the past six months, and the real unemployment rate (the one when you add back in the people that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has "disappeared" by dropping them from the labor force statistics -- see the labor force participation rates in 2000 vs. now, add those people back to the labor force, and you'll see what I mean) is now well over 15%.

And Phil Gramm, from the security of his multi-million-dollar CEO position, calls all of this "whining"? What, his favorite playtoy when he was a child was the Marie Antoinette Barbie, and his favorite thing to say while playing with his Barbie was "Let them eat cake"?

Yet Gramm still has the audacity to insist there's no problem, I see no-think, I hear no-think! If the Republicans had a logo for their economic policies, I guess it would be an ostrich with its head in the sand. Sigh.

[Former Republican]

Phil Gramm is completely out of touch with reality.

[malach hamovess]

Any US tax advice contained in this communication (which includes any attachment) is not intended to be and cannot be used for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or under applicable state and local laws, or for promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or theory addressed in this communication. This notice is provided pursuant to the rules and regulations imposed by the IRS to ensure compliance by tax advisors under IRS Circular 230, the Hague Convention, and the Treaty of Ghent.

[jim]

Great. One more old, rich, white Republican male telling the rest of us to stop whining about...what? The economy tanking because of mismanagement and greed in the U.S. mortgage industry? The atmosphere collapsing because the Bush administration prefers to protect corporate interests that get rich by polluting? The out-of-control war in Iraq that began with Bush's lies about WMD and continues because Bush lacks of a plan for peace? Skyrocketing gasoline prices because Bush and the Congress are utterly, exclusively beholden to the oil industry?

Gramm's comments tell us everything we need to know about the GOP.

[Ericmiami]

Cindy could put the entire deficit on her credit cards. That's McCain's only hope.

[Joe]

So I guess I'm just imagining the high gas and food prices, right? Oh, but those aren't part of "core inflation" so this isn't a "real" recession, we're just whiners complaining about painful price increases!

[G]

Phil Gramm resembles is remark!

[Thomas Mc]

Yes, if only we would just focus on how much better off the filthy-rich are, instead of the rest of us...

[tanaS]

We're in a financial fix now in large part from Graham, who now works for a Swiss bank, helped his banking lobbyist supporters put through a bill that removed the caps on mortgage interests. So all the foreclosed homes as a result of ARMS can be laid at the doorstep of Graham's. One more thing. How come all of McCain's cardinal campaign officers are lobbyists or former lobbyists?

[Henry Landis]

With friends like Gramm who needs enemies ? All that's missing now is another Herbert Hoover to tell us that prosperity is just around the corner. This internecine carnage among the Repubs is like a self-cleaning oven....Go for it Phil ! Barack.....take the girls to Disneyland, and then take a long nap. You'll need it before you start to clean up the mess the NOOKYOOLAR man leaves behind.

[bob]

Hey Phil.

Formerly middle-class Americans are now living in their cars.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080709123400.cvf3ndli&show_article=1

When was the last time you missed a meal, sir?

[jahlen]

From what I understand, Phil Gramm has little to say about the bill he authored and slipped through in 1999 that pretty much created the conditions for the current financial meltdown. Dubbed the "Financial Services Modernization Act", the bill repealed much of the Glass-Steagall Act which regulated the very parts of the banking industry that launched the Great Depression. His wife, a former Enron board member, made huge bucks off the unregulated trading that was enabled by Phil's Bill.

Hope I don't sound like a whiner when I trash morally bankrupt and self-serving politicians who refuse to acknowledge the effects of their "lawmaking."

So, Phil, take your pick: was it your stupidity or venality that inspired your monumental bill? Or will you admit to a total lack of inspiration and put it on the doorstep of the financial lobbyists who helped you write the bill?

Your choice dude.

[ObiWanKenobi]

This is the senator who said "A billion here and a billion
there and pretty soon you are talking real money".

[Jack]

Just to set the record straight, it was Sen. Everett Dirksen of Ill. who made the quote about "a billion here and a billion there...," not Sen. Phil Gramm of Tex.

[EM]

I am actually an Obama supporter. But I hate stupid politics.

If it's not right when they do this to Obama then it's not right the other way. The media is ridiculous.

Focus on the candidate and their issues.

[Ed]

Gramm was right. You people are a bunch of whiners. Grow up and solve your own problems. Stop looking for the federal government to hold your hand.

[Chuck]

Perhaps we’re having a national malaise.

(Chuck's another Ticket reader with an excellent memory. Anyone else remember where this came from? You're dating yourself, but who cares?)