Excellent!

Greg, you missed the best part (besides Obama saying "America already has one Dr. Phil"): Karen Tumulty asked McCain on Gramm's role in his economic policy (which we know is extensive) and whether or not he'd be a candidate for Secretary of Treasury.

McCain responded: "Phil Gramm would be an excellent candidate for Ambassador to Belarus, but not sure the people of Minsk would have him."

OUCH! Perhaps this will make it harder for him to toss Gramm under the bus however:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqGWTh_NZ-0

Excellent! Get 'em on the run.

This one is not going away. McCain has been talking about this psychological bullshit WAY too much to disavow it now.

Thank you for finally going on attack on this one. Good one. McCain, thanks to MSM suckers, has other vehicles to dissiminate his line of attack, while Obama camp has to do on their own, sometimes Obama being the messenger.

Checkmate.

CNN just ran a piece on the economic messages of the day and said NOT ONE WORD about Gramm. In fact, they had to cut it off before Obama got the the Gramm part of his speech. The next segment? About an "Obama oops" for that stupid Clinton fundraising thing. I'm pulling my hair out.

How can this be happening? Honestly? The only thing I can think it they want Blitzer to "break" it on CNN. Otherwise, how can they just ignore this whole thing?

I'm not sure how much the MSM will cover this, but luckily it is now on the front page of Google News, so who knows.

when he gets mean, I meant.

This is another example of conservatives telling what they see as the truth, and then regretting it. They don't see the economy is broken; on the contrary, they have gotten EXACTLY the outcome they were looking for: A massive gulf between the few wealthy and the rest of us; a service-based economy where 'the people' function as minimum-wage slaves, to the enrichment of 'entrepreneurs' and 'investors' (i.e. rich folks); massive levels of economic fear they can exploit to legislate more money into their hands; and yet another excuse for further deregulation, lower taxation, and higher levels of deficit spending. And, what they heck, maybe they can sell a few more jet fighters along the way!

This economy only looks broken to the rest of us. That's what they mean when they say it is in our heads - we just have the wrong perspective...

Pfui.

Jesus Christ, McGoo could barely get the words out of his mouth, like he was spitting out prune pits while he was trying to talk. He doesn't believe a word of it. He despises the whiny poor.

What a wicked old crank.

I'm glad to see Obama hitting this theme. The more he hits it, the more likely the chance that it will appear on the TV news. MSNBC just covered the story, but the word "covered" tells it all. They spent lots of time talking about how aggressivley McCain was distancing himself from Gramm (the Belarus comment) and very little talking about what this might reveal about McCain. Perhaps that is for the more Opinion-oriented people to address later on in the evenig.

The Obama camp could really make some progress here by turning the "nation of whiners" comment into a discussion of the elitism inherent in Republican policy. They need to get beyond warring sound-bites.

Gramm's comment is on the same level as "Let them eat cake" in its disparaging attitude towards others' economic struggles and insecurity. Obama needs to remind people that this is a long established Republican perspective, that these are the kinds of people McCain will keep in the White House for another 4 years.

Pointing up the real elitism behind Gramm's comments (and McCain's obvious deference to him -- see the video das2003 posted -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqGWTh_NZ-0 --) could force the MSM to cover these comments and reveal to voters what a McCain administration would think of them.

Look at all of you! You are all whiners! I don't see why, if things are so bad for you, you don't do what McCain did; dump your currect wife and marry an uber rich beer heiress!

You have no one to blame but yourself. Trust nobody with less than a million dollars in their bank!

Holy crap! Of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, only Fox News has an article on Gramm up at all -- and they have it on the front page.

GOOD JOB BARACK!!!

HIT EM HARD

As best I can discern, neither the CNN or Google News websites contain any mention of the Gramm comments.

It's not that the debt is in our heads.
...it's that the dollars are in theirs!

I really wish the Obama camp would talk about how "elitist" this view of economics is. They've done great so far, but somehow the word "elitist" needs to be laid on those who truly are. Too many people are starting to think it means "smart."

Since everyone seems so certain that we are in recession, when exactly did this recession begin?

Add your comments to any article you can find on this gaffe. If that volume is up, it's usually enough to draw the MSM to the information and then into the evening news.

WaPo has some good coverage. Check out this tasty treat from http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/07/10/mccain_distances_himself_from.html:

Even as Gramm refused to back down, McCain was in this hard-hit Detroit suburb trying desperately to empathize with the plight of the auto worker.

And not having much luck.

Speaking at an auto parts supplier, McCain said repeatedly that he understands how much the Michigan economy had declined, with unemployment over 8 percent and 70,000 lost jobs since the beginning of the year.

"America is hurting today. Michigan is hurting today. The automotive industry is hurting," he said to open a town hall here. "We have to understand the urgency of the situation and we should remind ourselves time after time."

But the crowd of about 100 sat on their hands in stony silence throughout most of his speech, especially his lecture about the need for free trade -- a policy not embraced in this town.

The first question was from a man who urged a different point of view, saying that "what we need to do is control some of those trade issues going on. What we want is fair trade."

McCain again expressed his sympathy, but refused to back down on trade, instead singing the praise of the American spirit of innovation and an education system that he said can be repaired to effectively retrain displaced workers.

I'm not usually happy with WaPo coverage of the campaigns, but sometimes they get it right. :)

The NY Times does not have the story on their front page, nor does WaPo, Newsweek, USA Today, Reuters, MSNBC.

Salon, Time magazine, ABC News, CBS, do.

It seems fairly clear that the MSM tends to coddle McCain, while jumping on every negative Obama story. It's feeling very much like 2004.

During the primaries, Hillary dominated the news every day. She created the agenda. I'd like to see a little more of that from Obama, 'cause, he's getting killed, while McCain slides by.

Barack looks so much more cooler when on the offense.

I think I can lower gas prices with my mind

Obama told reporters moments ago. "He didn't say this, but I guess what he meant was it's a fiction of your imagination, these high gas prices."

"A nation of whiners," Obama repeated. "Now this comes after Senator McCain recently admitted that his energy proposals for the gas tax holiday and the drilling, will have mainly psychological benefits."

Once again Obama offers nothing but words and platitudes. No proposals, just empty rhetoric.

YES!! I have been waiting for what, 2-3 weeks for Obama to hit right back at McCain and today it was worth the wait. The most clever and effective response I have seen yet. WAY TO GO!!

Keep in mind that the reason why Phil Gramm was a failed Economic Professor at Texas A&M was that he was (and remains) a Libertarian. He spent his time there trying to publish Libertarian propaganda instead of doing real Economics research.

Gramm was hired at A&M and got tenure before the decision was made to make A&M into a research university. As soon as that got rolling, Gramm was toast in the Economics Department, and no university of comparable status was going to hire him. Libertarians make poor economics researchers.

Dick Armey, also a Libertarian with a Ph.D. in Economics, had a similar experience when he took the job as head of the Economics Department at North Texas State University, and between his failure to publish and his rotten temperament, was throughly hated there.

Libertarians know the rules they believe in, so they spend their time trying to apply those rules. They don't need to research, since the answers are given by their ideology. Phil Gram knows that there is no Recession because his Free Market Libertarian philosophy tells him it must be true. It is unlikely that he has bothered to research anything. Instead he picks and chooses the reported statistics that confirm what his ideology shows is true and ignores the rest. This dismissal of the recession so many people know we are in is an example of his way of dismissing what he doesn't believe in.

When Phil Gramm left the Texas A&M Economics Department, I was told they were so delighted they worked to get him elected to Congress. When Gramm later tried to get the job of President of A&M (the job that Bob Gates got when he left the CIA) I heard a story that a major reason he failed to get the job was his reputation at the A&M Economics Department.

Libertarians like Phil Gramm, Dick Armey, and let's not forget, Alan Greenspan are quite useless in government or almost anywhere else. They believe only the rules they themselves attempt to impose on others, and don't listen to anyone else because they - as Libertarians - already know The Truth and need only to convert others to believe it.

He may not speak for you, POW McStain, but he DOES ADVISE you. I don't believe Reverend Wright spoke for Obama, but that didn't stop you from tying that knot.

Hopefully this Bushian moment of stoopidity will spell then end of Gramm's association with the McStain campaign.

I'm tired of STOOPID.

This is a 21 century version of, "Let them eat cake."

Gramm, backing up his statements:

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

How 'bout that Latino vote?

It's good that the McCain team is coordinating their talking points, as John McCain's been talking about how the problems with the economy, gas prices, energy, et al, and his proposals to solve them, are 'mostly psychological', for months now.

Alternative energy? McCain will harness the power of the subconscious, store it in a science-contest-prize battery, and use it to power your new 'horseless carriage'.

Go McCain!

http://www.womenforjohnmccain.com/