NYT, Bob Herbert: Phil Gramm is "Feeling No Pain"

[DeepModem Mom]

Feeling No Pain
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 12, 2008

....You may have lost your job or the family home. Or maybe you’re behind in your car payment or your health insurance premium. Perhaps you can’t afford the gas to get to work. Phil Gramm will have none of your complaints: Get over it! Stop whining and eat your gruel. This recession’s all in your head....

“We’re the only nation in the world,” Mr. Gramm once said, “where all our poor people are fat.” During one of the many Republican assaults on Social Security, the issue of cutting back benefits for the elderly came up in the Senate. “They are 80-year-olds,” howled Mr. Gramm. “Most people don’t have the luxury of living to be 80 years old, so it’s hard for me to feel sorry for them.”

John McCain, whose Straight Talk Express ran out of gas long ago, tried to paper over the implications of Mr. Gramm’s unseemly outburst this week about the very real suffering that has descended on millions of Americans. “Phil Gramm does not speak for me,” said Senator McCain. “I speak for me.”

But the truth is that Mr. Gramm, a close friend of Senator McCain’s for many years, has had a very loud say in the economic policies of the McCain presidential campaign. And those policies are an extension of the G.O.P. orthodoxy that is threatening to sink the ship of state, even as the very wealthy are dancing mindlessly to the music of another Gilded Age....What does it say about John McCain’s judgment that this guy was one of his top — and possibly his pre-eminent — economic adviser? What does it say about Mr. McCain’s judgment that in 1996, he believed Phil Gramm was the best choice to be president?

The biggest failing of both parties in this presidential campaign has been the unwillingness to be forthright with the public about the true extent of the crises facing the country....

***

Barack Obama got a lot of play with his clever response to the Phil Gramm madness. “You know, America already has one Dr. Phil,” said Mr. Obama. “When it comes to the economy, we don’t need another.” Cute. But woefully inadequate. The Democrats, timid as always, should be pounding the populist pavement from one coast to another, explaining how the reckless and deliberately inequitable policies of the past several years have gotten the U.S. into this terrible fix....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/opinion/12herbert.html?hp

[Lasher]

1. If Gramm wasn't speaking for McLame,

then what do campaign spokesmen do? I'm confused.

[crazylikafox]

6. K&R

[Lasher]

7. Me too.

Just needs one more vote now.

[NC_Nurse]

2. Right on! He's so right about how the Dems need to seize the issue...

"We should be getting chapter and verse about how badly the war in Iraq is hurting us here at home. We should be seeing charts and graphs explaining how ordinary Americans, now the hardest-working people on the planet, have been cheated out of their share of the extraordinary productivity improvements they’ve racked up over the years.

There should be a sense of urgency coming from the Democrats in this campaign, a clarion call compelling enough to rally the legions who have been treated unfairly and badly hurt in the nation’s other undeclared war: the class war.

Phil Gramm was a general in that conflict, and there was nothing cute about it."

No shit, Bob. Could you please get the DEms on this? :bounce:

[Colobo]

3. Good piece.

[patrice]

4. Why did he say it? The RNC is solidifying its most reliable base; the criteria is CLA$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

ALL OTHERS ARE FODDER.

[Overseas]

5. He and best buddy John Sidney McCain III oughta whine about whiners some more !

There ought to be more news clips about what JSM III's dear chum and economic adviser thinks about the darned riff raff.

[1776Forever]

8. Phil Gramm can kiss my big ass - One reason I am so fat is because of my stress level!

That is the truth! I have hypothyroid problem and when I am stressed out I gain weight! This is a medical fact!

Just ask Oprah! Even her millions don't help her!

http://thyroid.about.com/b/2007/10/18/oprahs-thyroid-problem-causes-weight-gain-and-fatigue-could-you-be-suffering-too.htm

So again I say: "Philly boy, you can kiss my big ass!". With 2 sons who have gone to War for the Bush's in the last 10 years and with another son who almost lost his life and our savings, what little we had, was spent on keeping him going because he didn't have any dependent children so they didn't give a crap whether he made it or not! So much for these so called Christians!

Sick - Sick - Sick!

[me b zola]

9. .

[tiptoe]

10. Phil Gramm, Wendy Gramm, Ken Lay, Bill Clinton, Sch*zenegger, McCain ---- Olbermann Vid & Palast:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6384550&mesg_id=6385943