Letting this question fester is such an amateur mistake. Its one more indication that McCain and his team are just in over their heads.

Really odd - despite other GOP habitual problems, to their credit they usually put together fairly strong campaign teams.

The good news for McCain is that its happening now. While a lot of folks are paying attention to these early backs and forth, most of us already know which way we'll be going come election day. The true undecided independents are taking some of this in, here and there, but aren't really focused on it yet.

Good.  As long as Phil's a member of team McCain,, it's okay to paint McCain himself as endorsing the erstwhile pornographer's opinion that americans are a bunch of whiners.  

Did anyone actually BELIEVE Phil Gramm was out? Pleeze. Again, the Repubs think we're stupid. Gramm is an old, close friend of McCain (emphasis on old). He hasn't thrown him under the bus....he's riding right by McCain's side and will throughout his defeat in November. I laughed at the thought that Gramm's influenece has been "missed on the campaign trail". So THAT'S what the problem has been, eh? Gramm's influence. Here I thought it was because the Repubs have an out-of-touch old, creepy candidate with no message, no new ideas, no enthusiasm. Silly me.

"He then lauds Gramm as "a conservative icon of the Reagan Revolution" and "an architect of supply-side economics that produced the recovery in the 1980’s that we still technically live in."
________________________
Oh yeah?

Mr. Baker should have had titled his article: The Ronald Reagan The Right Wing Hardly Knew
________________________________
Kevin Baker, author.

"In general his adherents like to portray Reagan as a “big vision” president, who was an expert at delegating and did not let himself get bogged down in the details of governing. Yet it is not at all clear that his vision was really wide enough, or that he would not have benefited from paying a little more attention to details. His administration was engulfed in scandals, after all, ranging from the Iran-Contra operation, in which the constitution was flaunted in the course of selling arms to a fanatical, terrorist-supporting theocracy that had just humiliated the United States; to the S&L debacle, which (at the time) remains the costliest financial scandal in American and perhaps world history. The supposedly sterling economic record of the Reagan ’80s was in fact bracketed by a deep recession and a stock market crash, while the go-go years in between were fueled by record peacetime deficits that his successors labored for nearly ten years to make up—and which contradicted nearly everything Reagan claimed to stand for before taking office.

More disturbingly, throughout his public life, Reagan was also distinctly unsympathetic towards those who were victims of almost anything besides communist oppression. His reaction to the AIDS epidemic was sluggish and indifferent at best. He opposed even the most basic civil rights legislation that ended Jim Crow in the 1960s, and blithely speculated that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been a Soviet agent, even as he signed the holiday honoring him into law. His breaking of the air traffic controllers’ union was a watershed moment in the destruction of workers’ rights in America and, perhaps saddest of all, he remained hostile to nearly all social welfare programs even after his own family was rescued through government intervention during the Great Depression—even inventing and popularizing the infamous story of a black, Cadillac-driving, “welfare queen” who never actually existed."
_________________________
Ronald Reagan was not some perfect specimen. Get over it. He decimated the California educational system while he was their governor, an educational system which was once considered the envy of the entire country before he became their governor.  

I can't stand Andrea Mitchell.  She is so full of herself  and loves the sound of her own voice.  What gives her the idea that anyone wants to hear her thoughts on anything??????????!!!

Please Chuck you will us a great service if you can carry out an independent investigation of this story and let the public know the truth.

With that said, I think the fact that we are still talking about Gramm in McCain campain shows that they have been lieing to us about the status of the man that did not insault americans but up till now has refused to apologized.

The hypocrisy of the republicans continue. " A nation of whinners." McCain is toast come November

I think poor John McBush's opinion has changed on so many Items of late it's past flip-flops. His name should be McPendulum.There seems to be much confusion over his positions over Obama's positions. I really think that either McBush is confused or he is a liar, so I hope to believe that it is the confusion. Old Man Yells At Clouds !!!!!!!!!!!

Phil Gramm is the person to blame for high gas prices.  He created the "Enron Loophole" that allowed Enron to gouge the people of California, and is now allowing the oil companies to gouge the American citizens.

Why should we even feign surprise that the McCain camp is playing fast and loose with this issue too? They continually lie in their inane rebuttals, negative attacks ads and in their daily talking points.

He's assuredly in - just look through the smoke and mirrors that define this campaign.

For the McCain group to have someone as Phil Gramm as a primary advisor at all speaks volumes of the type of administration that McCain's would be: Totally skewed toward the predatory corporate types who have taken this country's economic reins and driven it into the type of "capitalistic chaos" which totally ignores the needs of the majority and deems it as natural / proper free market economy. This type of economic structure will (and has been) make the US look like a colonial type of economy; much like India before '48, or many other exploitive states where the masses live in subjugation and poverty.  All under the name of "free enterprise".  

In other words....those who will not be a part of the Very Wealthy Elite would be fools to (consciously)support this type of government. Of course...just this type of economy has been supported by both Clinton and the Bushes for over 15 years.  It is time to wake up before the America most of us wish we had is truly just a long lost dream.  

How bad have these campaign misteps become?

I've been beating myself up because I can't think of a childish McPlayonwords to fully capture the situation. I started thinking maybe McQuayle.

But then I realized that wasn't fair to Dan Quayle. After all, he never claimed spelling as an expertise.

John McCain's Straight Talk Express is still in the ditch. He is so good at saying one thing and doing another that it would not be surprising if Gramm is still around, on the downlow, giving advice to McCain. Gramm should be saving the "nation of whiners" slogan for John McCain himself since he has whined about Obama's every move since Senator Obama left to go over seas.

John McCain's major gaffes gives serious pause as to his mental status and capability. No joke. The world is a very mean place nowadays, and a president with diminishing gray matter is reason to rethink John McCain's presidential viability.

GO OBAMA/BIDEN 08/12

Everyone knows that Phil Gramm is still a part of McCain's campaign. The fact is the media is constantly changing the subject from things they don't want to talk about.

I'm still wondering how the White House got a pass on that whole "Maliki was mistranslated" incident . . . I guess we are so used to the Bush Adminsitration lying and deceiving us, that it's not even news anymore.

Karl Rove doesn't show up for a congressional subpeona? Ho hum.

Troops being electricuted because of shoddy work by independent contractors in Iraq? No big deal.

Same with McCain.

Phil Gramm financing porn and being up to his neck in the deregulation that led to the mortgagae and energy crisis? Yawn.

Sad but true.

Senator Obama wears a flag pin?

24 hour analysis.

Go figure.

Wise words from the Huffington Post:

I am so sick of hearing about how the media are biased toward Barack Obama. It's bad enough that John McCain's campaign is making this completely bogus claim, but now the mainstream media are reporting it as if the slant towards Obama is a given. (Today, a Yahoo! news headline blared, "McCain vs. Obama: Is the media playing fair with coverage?.")

Once again, the McCain camp is taking a page from the playbook Hillary Clinton employed against Obama. And while Clinton's claim was dubious enough, for McCain to try to argue that he is not being treated fairly by the media is downright outrageous. Why? Because nobody in the history of modern politics has been a bigger media sweetheart than John McCain. And in this campaign, he is allowed to virtually say or do anything without being called on it.

The ridiculousness of McCain claiming that he is getting the short end of the stick with the mainstream media is so silly, since the idea that he gets coddled by the press is hardly a new idea. MediaMatters keeps a running list of instances in which the media have failed to challenge or present an accurate portrait of McCain's views. And it's a substantial list.

Back in March, Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece on Salon.com that expertly described the special treatment the press accords McCain, and how liberal pundits are just as likely to drink the McCain Kool-Aid. Greenwald concentrates on the idea that it is taken as a given that McCain is a foreign policy expert, so his gaffes are ignored. He writes:

"Reporters have already decided that John McCain is a Serious, Knowledgeable Foreign Policy Expert -- and an honorable, truth-telling gentleman -- and therefore there is no reason to tell voters about evidence that demonstrates that he's anything but that. Evidence that reflects poorly on McCain's foreign policy seriousness or character is actually suppressed or concealed because they think it can't be newsworthy, because such evidence just can't be true, by definition."
Greenwald goes on to note that "reporters who have long covered McCain themselves constantly admit that they accord McCain special, favorable treatment and don't even realize the deep corruption they're acknowledging." He cites Ana Marie Cox of Time saying on CNN:

"I think what happens is that you -- if you've been covering him for a long time, there's a sense that, well, he does that all the time, it's not worth reporting, because he does -- he's a cranky old man. I mean, to be quite frank [...] And also, we wrote it off to, like, you know, he hadn't had his fifth cup of Starbucks today."
The issue of the moment when Greenwald wrote his Salon.com article was McCain's repeated gaffe of saying that Iran was linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq. But it's not like McCain has stopped there. In the last couple of weeks, he has repeatedly talked about "Czechoslovakia," a country that hasn't existed for 15 years, and, just this morning, he described "the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border" on ABC's Good Morning America. Only, Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border

I am not arguing that McCain's geographical aphasia is quid pro quo proof of his foreign policy incompetence. But I am arguing that McCain never gets called on his errors by the mainstream media (Diane Sawyer was silent after his Iraq-Pakistan statement on Good Morning America), where Obama would absolutely be taken to task (and probably called inexperienced) if he made the same errors.

More importantly, the mainstream media's genuflection at the feet of McCain keeps the facts of McCain's lack of foreign policy acumen from reaching voters. Tom Brokaw cited an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Meet the Press yesterday that said that respondents overwhelmingly believe that McCain would make a better commander in chief than Obama. Given the media coverage, it's easy to see why Americans currently feel that way. But that doesn't mean the evidence backs up that belief.

As Greenwald noted in his March Salon.com article:

"The reality is that John McCain's understanding of foreign policy and his approach to national security has proven to be simplistic, destructive and idiotic. Nobody spewed more pre-invasion falsehoods and confused and misleading claims about Iraq than John McCain did. And he's been the Prime Cheerleader for one of the most destructive wars in U.S. history. The notion that he has expertise in foreign policy or sound judgment is a total myth, yet it's one that his press fans accept and enforce as orthodoxy.
"McCain's simple-minded militarism, his ignorance about national security, and his moronic view that the U.S. should run the world through endless wars ought to be one of the most intensely debated issues in the campaign. But it won't be because -- as Marcus said -- the media has already decided that McCain is a Serious Expert in these matters and that national security is his strength, and evidence to the contrary won't be reported."


I share Greenwald's frustration over how the mainstream media takes McCain's experience and expertise in foreign policy as a given. I made the same argument in this space on July 1 and pointed out how prescient Obama's judgments have been on the same issues.

It is frustrating that the media repeatedly refer to McCain as being a "maverick" (a Yahoo! news search of "McCain maverick" returned 520 hits in just the last three weeks) and as someone who frequently goes against the leadership of his party, even though he voted 98 percent of the time with his fellow Republicans (43 of 44) in 2007, and with Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 89 percent of the time since Bush took office (according to a Congressional Quarterly voting study).

It is also frustrating that the mainstream media is quick to call Obama a flip-flopper for changing his view on FISA (and allegedly changing his views on Iraq and gun control, even though the evidence shows that his message has been consistent on these issues), while failing to mention McCain's reversals of his positions on virtually every issue of substance, from taxes to Iraq to torture to the economy. (I wrote at length about McCain's flip-flops on July 6.)

It may well be true that Obama's trip to Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe is getting a lot of press coverage, and much of that coverage is positive. But given how the mainstream media have glossed over McCain's inadequacies, treating his foreign policy gaffes the way the press ignored John F. Kennedy's affairs, for McCain to make the claim that he is getting screwed by the mainstream media is truly laughable.

But it is effective. A Rasmussen poll released today revealed that 49 percent of those asked thought that reporters were trying to help Obama win. Give McCain's campaign credit. They've done a good job of shoveling this manure into the public consciousness.

Maybe I am making a strategic mistake here. Maybe I should be urging the media to grant McCain more coverage. Because shining a light on McCain's views, conduct, record and speaking style can only help Obama's candidacy.

"an architect of supply-side economics that produced the recovery in the 1980’s that we still technically live in."

---------------------------------------------------
Giving Graham credit for any recovery in the eighties is absolutely proposterous...Paul Volkers watchful hand and unmoving stance in the Fed brought things back in line.  Supply side economics didn't do anything but create a nation addicted to credit, and massively in debt.

Mike DeVine is a fool

McCain is a classic flip-flopper.  This is not a surprise.  McCain can't do without Mr. Whinner.
All in your head
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lu4dcxl4GY

John McCain: Early Improprieties. Lobbyists, Lobbyists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-kOIs-W6E&eurl

Obama Will Raise Your Taxes: Anti-Meme Ammunition
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/14/3111/53739

No surprize here.  Whether talked about or not Gramm will be with and advising little Johnnie War Gnome.  The politics of rich "war is good" scumbags is what McCain is all about....why would he separate himself from one of the biggest elitists in operation.  

I live for the day when this PARADE OF STUPID marches of a clift.

Of COURSE he's not out. Phil "Nation of Whiners" Gramm is the architect of McCain's entire economic policy and it doesn't matter what is said publicly about Gramm's participation in his campaign...

It's disgusting. This is the guy who engineered deregulation of the mortgage industry, you whiners!

Between 1995 and 2000 Gramm, who was the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, received $1,000,914 in campaign contributions from the Securities & Investment industry.

This is the guy who has invested in multiple PORN movies to little or no outrage by Republicans, who have always been the loudest voice proclaiming their "family values" and "morality"... WHAT HYPOCRITES!

This is the guy whose wife worked for Enron and who engineered the Enron loopholes: Gramm was one of five co-sponsors of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. One provision of the bill was referred to as the "Enron loophole" because Gramm drafted it in cooperation with lobbyists for Enron Corporation. Critics blame the provision for permitting the Enron scandal to occur. At the time, Gramm's wife was on Enron's board of directors.

But John McCain STILL claims he is the person who has fought against the influence of lobbyists in Washington, DC. WHAT COMPLETE BS!

So, America, if you are planning to vote McCain, think about what McCain has SAID versus what he DOES. Just like his pimp BUSH, you'll know he is lying because his mouth is moving.

McCain = Bush's THIRD Term

its reminds me of when mark penn left the clinton campaign, his role was "reduced" but he was still apart of the campaign.  mccain is full of it when it comes to gramm again trying to play both sides and both sides can see through it

Video of unenthusiastic PUMA, Just Say No Deal Protest
http://sensico.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/video-of-puma-just-say-no-deal-losers-hold-a-protest/
or
http://sensico2.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-blogs.html

According to the 2008 Vice President poll at http://www.votenic.com , well, see for yourselves.

You Won't Believe These Results!

Mike DeVine lambastes the "MSM," -- and TV conservatives -- which he said, "lives for taking conservatives' words out of context and fitting it into their template of Republicans’ as racist, bigot, heartless warmongers."

***********************************************

Don't forget pedophiles, hypocrites and crooks.  They are the ones that created the template over the past seven and a half years.  

Independent voting for Obama

I think John McCain should keep him - and parade him around every day.

This would be a continued reminder to the American people that John McCain is a liar and will be the same as the current lying administration.

Keep him John - do yourself a favor.

Thank you and GOD BLESS AMERICA

"Oh, I think in terms of advice Phil Gramm will be critical, which is good because on things like trade he is absolutely right," Forbes told Kudlow.

 phil gramm is a good example of the heartless republican parties quest for a two class america, he is one of the main architects of bank deregulation and one of the people whose blundering along has ruined our country for all but the rich, he has no concept of living from paycheck to paycheck, living without medical insurance or anything that working americans face on a daily basis and could give a rat's xxx about anyone but the wealthy, he honestly doesn't understand the general populations plight and in true republican fashion just ignores them, john edwards was exactly right about the 2 america's and people like gramm intend to keep it that way, to him and john mccain working class people are merely breeders for the military forces that protect and build there wealth and power, and that "my friends" should be reason enough for any average citizen to do their best to see the evil republican empire is removed from power

kenn, dude, get back on your medication!!!

"Oh, I think in terms of advice Phil Gramm will be critical, which is good because on things like trade he is absolutely right," Forbes told Kudlow.

 phil gramm is a good example of the heartless republican parties quest for a two class america, he is one of the main architects of bank deregulation and one of the people whose blundering along has ruined our country for all but the rich, he has no concept of living from paycheck to paycheck, living without medical insurance or anything that working americans face on a daily basis and could give a rat's xxx about anyone but the wealthy, he honestly doesn't understand the general populations plight and in true republican fashion just ignores them, john edwards was exactly right about the 2 america's and people like gramm intend to keep it that way, to him and john mccain working class people are merely breeders for the military forces that protect and build there wealth and power, and that "my friends" should be reason enough for any average citizen to do their best to see the evil republican empire is removed from power

Of course Gramm is still "IN".  Where is the surprise in that?  McLame is hypocracy incarnate.

Can anybody please tell me what relevance Michelle Malkin has in the political process?  She is nothing but a whining, hating, dispicable piece of a human species.

The guy resigned.  Steve forbes, kudlow, and novak have no relationship with the McCain campaign.  Novak got another story wrong that McCain would announce his VP pick this week.  Gramm is out of the campaign he resigned.  So now McCain is also responsible for what every talking head on television says.  Their is nothing to your story but that doesn't stop the media from pounding McCain.  Who cares what Steve forbes says.

Has anyone ever notice the McWar campaign does nothing but criticize and complain about everything. No new ideas, no positive message, just criticize and complain. They must wake up everyday and have there morning meetings and say ok guys what can we criticize and complain about today. These guys must be angry old men that are suffering from ERD. How does Cindy Mcwar live with this guy, I give her credit for hanging in there. God Bless Her.

McCain; criticize and complain, criticize and complain, criticize and complain, criticize and complain, criticize and complain, criticize and complain. If the MSM counts how many times McWar puts; out a negative messages to the public it must be a 50 to 1 ratio.

Mcwar try to come up with a positive message, please.

"If Sen. Obama had had his way, the troops would have been out by this past March, and Sen. Obama voted to cut off funding for our troops in Iraq," McCain said to reporters

Yes, yes, you are so right McWar and if Obama would of had his way 4200 Americans would still be alive. We would have saved 4 trillion dollars and had lower oil prices. Keep talking Mcwar you are helping Obama win this thing.

I am still waiting for someone to tell me what we have gained by this war in Iraq? What have we gained?

McWar/Hadji Now thats something to think about!

LOVE THE TERM:  Low Information Voters( LIV's ) And it truly describes an unfortunately large portion of the voting public...including those who watch only the MSM news (20 - 30 second soundbites and headlines without stories), or listen/watch only the FOX or Limbaugh productions.   Frankly, only PBS and C-SPAN air unbiased, complete reports (though CSPAN can be tedious to watch).

Seven years later and still no OBL. The McWar camp and the GOP wants to make Iraq the 51st state. Take there oil put the Iraq people on reservations and build casinos. And they wonder why the rest of the world does not like us?

I think it once again shows that McCain and his campaign are trying to have it both ways.  This is a common theme for them.  They say one thing in one room, another in the next.  Eventually, of course, this leads people to think that McCain does not actually stand for anything.  

From my viewpoint the McCain campaign is imploding. Last week Phil Gramm; today we learn about an "Obama friendly media" which is the cause of sadness inside the McCain camp.  Thos is so typical of the Republican strategy to accept responsibility for nothing--act victimized. At the national level this is pathetic behavior.  Time will tell if the American people will be duped (again).

Dear Barack Obama supporters: If you don't like listening to Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan as they rip Senator Obama apart, do yourselves a favor, turn them off.

They're enough to drive any of us to drink.

Amy, thank you for your kind words. I just wish our leaders would think once in a while. War is brutal. Especially for the civilians. John McCain talks about democracy, but does not talk about how many Iraqi's were killed in order to get their democracy. What about the refugees? Not a word about them from McCain - or any republican for that matter.

And the more I read here from you guys about the so-called success of the surge, the more I really wonder. Isn't it funny that conflicts always seem to be going better the closer we get to an election. Happens every time.

McSame's economic policy is formed from Gramm and everyone needs to know this guy is still part of the campaign, of course all his morgage deals and porn deals need to come out

Maybe McCain just cannot remember that Gramm was out but not quite out, then back in, then really out, then back in but then resigned and now back in. Makes sense is McCain World. That's how people do it in Czechoslovakia today.

We have all been involved in presidential campaigns in the past, but this campaign is special because of the unique honor of working for a candidate like John McCain " a man who never surrenders.

Just think if McCain was the president of the confederacy during the Civil War the South would have been totally destroyed, and millions of men and women would have lost there lives. This man does not know how to cut his losses and move on.

Further, if he was president during the Vietnam conflict we would still be fighting and a million more Americans would have died.

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