Gramm Stands by Recession Comments

If you really want to know what the ruling elite thinks about you and me, all you have to do is listen:

Former senator Phil Gramm -- under fire for saying the United States has "become a nation of whiners" -- said in an interview today that he meant the nation's leaders were whiners, not its citizens.

But the top adviser to Sen. John McCain repeated his assertion that the economy is not in recession, and he declined to retract the comments quoted yesterday in the Washington Times.

"I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true," Gramm said.

Gramm stirred up controversy when he called the nation's economic malaise a "mental recession," then added, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."

So -- Obama thinks small-town Americans are bitter people who "cling to guns or religion" and smolder in their "anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." And McCain's top advisor thinks we're whiners just because we can't afford gas and are losing our jobs. Instead of whining about an imaginary recession, we oughta pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. After all, if his boss can marry a rich spouse, we should be able to do the same.

Bottom line: the ruling elite despises us, mocks us, and thinks it can fool us forever.