FINEMAN: McCain Doesn't Need Enemies. He Has Friends.

Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman's take on yesterday's insightful analysis from McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm that America is a "nation of whiners" stuck in a "mental recession"--a gaffe that edges out Samantha Power's "Monster" comment and Bill Clinton's race-tinged remarks to win Stumper's coveted award for "Most Stupidest Surrogate Statement of 2008." At least until the next time one of these folks opens his or her mouth.

This was supposed to be John McCain's week to re-re-launch his campaign, this time with a tightly focused message about the economy and how he plans to fix it. He had a nicely staged debut in Denver, even if the experts quickly demanded to know how he could preserve George Bush's tax cuts, stay in Iraq and yet balance the federal budget by 2013. Details, details! Still, McCain was back in the game.

Then a one-man thundercloud named Phil Gramm rained on McCain's Main Street parade.

In one of the more boneheaded remarks in recent presidential politics (and Gramm has uttered others) the former Texas senator declared that we are in the midst of a "mental recession" and that we have "sort of become a nation of whiners."

This was so asinine as to make Jesse Jackson Sr. (and his live-microphone gaffe about cutting off Barack Obama's ... accessories) sound like Plato.

McCain, polls show, is struggling to persuade voters—even in his own party—that Republicans deserve to retain stewardship of the economy. Obama and the Democrats are way ahead in polls on questions related to jobs, health care, gas prices, business regulation, the mortgage mess—you name it.

At a time of $4-a-gallon gasoline (or more), of falling home prices in most American cities, of skyrocketing food costs and steadily rising unemployment rates, dismissing worried American voters as whining, depressed basket cases is, well, insane.

Gramm is an economist—at least he has a Ph.D. in the field—but nothing proves the stupidity of the "dismal science" more than his comments in an interview with The Washington Times. Technically, a "recession" is two straight quarters of negative growth; so technically, we may in fact not be in a recession. Or we might, but don't yet know it.

Either way, Gramm missed the point.

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