From The Virginian Pilot
By Daryl Lease

I do hope John McCain still has Phil Gramm’s number. He owes the former Texas senator an apology and maybe even a guest spot in his next “Hot Chicks Dig Obama” campaign commercial.

It’s been a month now since McCain’s campaign gave its co-chairman the bum’s rush for indelicately describing America as “a nation of whiners” who constantly grouse about how bad the economy is.

“You’ve heard of mental depression,” Gramm explained, slowly enough for all of us who don’t have a doctorate in economics to understand. “This is a mental recession.”

McCain, who was presumably preoccupied with the early stages of formulating his innovative Barack-Obama-is-too-popular-to-win campaign strategy, chose not to defend his old friend.

Instead, McCain declared that, by golly, the U.S. economy really is “in shambles.” And, as a point of clarification, he added, “Phil Gramm does not speak for me. I speak for me.”

Well, it turns out old Phil was right, sort of. The economy’s not so bad.

The truth is, our stomachs are plump, our faces are smeared with chocolate, our lungs are filled with the satisfying cloud of toxic smoke, and all of us - more or less - are blotto.

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