To memoralize the sad event of yet another McCain departure, I excerpt from an abject confession of one of the counterproductive whiners who led to and fed the Gramm departure, and he is of all things, a Pennsylvania newspaperman - of the species of whiners who probably whined over that wonderfully gifted and inspired Senator Santorum, whining him into a departure - by whining from a press soapbox to voters who took up the whine, and whined all the way to the polling place to be able to whine against Santorum at, of all places, ballot-boxes.
What a bunch. What a place for whining. The ingrates were just unappreciative of all that leadership has given. But at least now one will stand and confess his guilt; Reg Henry, columnist with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who has his confession broadcast coast to coast, with me in between, only excerpting.
On behalf of the whiner community, I would like to say a few characteristically depressing words about the economy.
As former Sen. Phil Gramm said recently, whiners like myself are having a mental recession when it comes to the economy. I have to admit this is true. My mentality long ago receded so much it took my hair with it.
Just this week I did a bit of whining when I looked at my retirement investments and realized that I will have to work for perhaps another 30 years past my projected retirement date.
Of course, that assumes there will be a newspaper industry to work in.
I have suggested to management that we use our circulation system to deliver breakfast pizzas with news printed on the box.
Unfortunately, it's not just the word factories that are hurting. It seems that every industry has its problems, with the possible exception of the repossession industry. But to say this is to contribute to the gloom and doom that apparently is the only brake on the Bush administration's economic plans from taking flight on the wings of eagles.
Today I want to apologize for any excessive, recessive mental doubting on my part that may have caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the wholesale export of jobs overseas, through-the-roof gas prices, the devalued dollar and the failed IndyMac Bancorp, which had the bad manners to have its assets seized just after Mr. Gramm blamed all the economic bad news on Whiner Nation.
Worse yet, Starbucks is closing 600 of its stores, which threatens to end American civilization as we know it.
It's sobering to think what we whiners and moaners have wrought, but that's what Mr. Gramm, a top economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, suggested -- and who is to say he is wrong, except, you know, we whiners. To his credit, Mr. McCain immediately disavowed his adviser's remarks perhaps because "Let Them Eat Cake" is not the best slogan for his campaign.
Still, I feel a personal sense of responsibility. IndyMac was the second-largest financial institution in U.S. history to close and I hate to think it was my fault even in a collective sense.
For his part, President Bush, who has long insisted that the fundamentals of the economy are sound, even as the incidentals rained down on the heads of we the whiners, had his own reassuring words at his recent White House news conference.
Mr. Bush conceded, just a teensy bit, that things could be better, but suggested we are still hopping along the bunny trail to prosperity. He also said that offshore drilling wouldn't produce a barrel of oil anytime soon, "but it will reverse the psychology."
It's all in our heads, even when it's in our wallets.
But don't worry. There's a surge for everything, even if not an answer. Or is, "Surge the debt," what has come to be a GOP answer? Surge the pump price? Surge the bankruptcies, the lawyers need the prosperity; there is a gaining sector even when another loses.
It must be a working strategy, surging. After all, it is being copied, Sen. Obama surging in the polls, his party pushing to surge to victory in November. The surge mentality must be the answer to all the whining, or else it would not be so imitated.