George Will Sticks Up For Gramm: Americans Are ‘The Cry Babies Of The Western World’»

[babylonsister]

Heads up-he's coming up in my time zone now, so I'll be listening. Very easy for a guy to talk who has banked whatever he has. Maybe he can't feel any pain, but he's in the minority.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/13/george-will-gramm/

George Will Sticks Up For Gramm: Americans Are ‘The Cry Babies Of The Western World’»

Last week, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) economic adviser Phil Gramm sparked controversy by stating that the U.S. is in a “mental recession” created by a “nation of whiners.” In response, McCain quickly tried to distance himself from his long-time friend’s remarks.

Today on ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will acknowledged that the economy had slowed tremendously but nevertheless staunchly defended Gramm’s comments. “Phil Gramm was right of course,” Will declared. “Absolutely”:

WILL: On two points. … We’re not in a recession as commonly defined. That is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We may be running there though. Even Bernanke says so.

WILL: We’re not however. Unemployment is just about the post-war average at 5.5 percent. His second point that we’re a nation of whiners: we are the crybabies of the western world. In fact, we have an extraordinarily low pain threshold.

Watch it at link~

As ThinkProgress noted, Americans are hurting, not whining. But according to Will’s logic, the pain from increasing homelessness, skyrocketing health care costs, housing foreclosures up 50 percent last month, and record oil prices is simply evidence of Americans having an “extraordinarily low pain threshold.”

With his full-throated defense of Gramm’s callous remarks, Will is echoing the likes of several Fox News pundits who have also taken to defending Gramm. Last week, Sean Hannity declared, “Maybe we do whine too much.” Fred Barnes added that Americans are “whining all the way through” the bad economy.

[jaxx]

1. Pissing off the public is what they do best.

And they thought bitter was the word of the election process!

[tanyev]

2. Maybe it's because everyone else in the "western world" has a better social safety net, George.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. Will's been pushing those artificial unemployment numbers for YEARS.

[theoldman]

4. We are not in a recession.

We are up shit creek. There are also lot of jobs, working at McDonald's, picking fruit. Who listens to George Will anyhow.

[NYC_SKP]

5. None of them pump their own gas. Nuff said.

Imagine being governed by folks who shared our pain, lived paycheck to paycheck, worried about medical costs.

[NC_Nurse]

6. That's definitely true of Repubs. They get what they want, but it's never

enough. The rich keep getting richer, but they're never satisfied. They want YET ANOTHER tax cut,
no estate tax, lower business taxes, and on it goes. WAAAHHH!!!!

[bluerum]

7. George Will. Irrelevant asshole of the western world.

Why anyone even listens to this arrogant, elitist up tight schmuck is beyond me.

[Trillo]

8. It's a frame: "crybabies", meaning 'shut up' ! nt

[stray cat]

9. Only the people making more than $250,000 and corps are allowed to complain

and get bailed out.

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Toon

[baldguy]

11. Gramm and Will are right - Americans ARE a bunch of whiners and crybabies.

At least SOME of them are - chief among them people like Gramm and Will.

[grilled onions]

12. When a Family Has Two Quarters Of Negative Growth...

they are in trouble. The landlord gets testy every month....kids stomachs start rumbling when they don't get enough in it...utilities have a funny way of shutting off like magic...the vehicle doesn't move with an empty tank...when jobs,job hours and wages get slashed there is a definte sign of negative growth. These clowns on the box seem to thrive on numbers on a sheet of paper. They don't care that those numbers are people. If they want to know what pain is perhaps a few nights of sleeping in the cold or going bed to hungry would give them an idea.:mad:

[bmbmd]

13. Why are Gramm's whining observations

different from President Carter's "National Malaise" speech in the seventies? Carter was crucified in the press.

[Warpy]

14. He's got a point, but not the way he means it.

Any of us who have traveled to any part of the third world, even the relatively prosperous Mexico, have seen what poverty looks like there. By those standards, suburbanites drowning in debt and who are having to cut back on fast food in order to afford gas for the SUV do look like whiners.

However, the person mired in poverty in the third world is generally not enslaved to multiple debts and facing the disaster of losing as much as the suburbanite is. S/he is focused on the day's food and water for livestock and children, one day at a time in orderly progression. The suburbanite is facing the distinct probability that the jig is finally up, the bills are going to come due, and they'll be out on the street without even a place to put up a tarpaper hut to keep the rain off. They're already seeing people living in their cars or worse and know they might be next when they realize their net worth is now in negative numbers and their job can be offshored.

Being called a whiner by some bloated plutocrat who is full of himself and smug for choosing the right parents and dropping ass first into a job he was never qualified for and which he used to screw workers out of the benefits of their labor is not going to play well in Peoria or anywhere else. Suburbia, the backbone of the GOP, is experiencing massive inconvenience and is faced with the possibility of utter disaster. These are not imaginary problems and they're not all in their heads.

Telling them they're a bunch of whiners because they're not third world yet is not the smartest political statement the GOP has made. However, given the conditions that most of the world's people experience, it wasn't totally off the mark.

[Tutonic]

15. Obama needs to refine talking points around this nonsense.

The "crybabies, whiners" argument is the Republican version of "bitter." This is not a vote getter for McBush.

[Graybeard]

16. George Will has always been an elitist pig.

He always has that smirk on his face when he deigns to opine to the great unwashed.

[Bjorn Against]

17. George Will has always been the spokesman for the extremely wealthy

While many pundits like to speak up for the rich and powerful, George Will does it more than any other. Virtually every single one of his columns focuses on an issue that is generally only of concern to those with vast sums of money. He loves to call massive campaign contributions "free speech" because to him in order to have free speech a person needs to be able to write out a really big check.

He would do anything to make the rich richer and if anyone with a lower income complains about it he will simply dismiss them as "crybabies". He is so arrogant, I can't stand the guy.

[DBoon]

18. They are ignoring the real issue

It has little to do with aggregate economic growth rates, and everything to do with the standard of living of the average US citizen

The benefits of economic growth are being reaped by a small wealthy elite.

The average person has seen a stagnating standard of living for the last 25 years, and a declining standard of living for the last 7. Despite a slight uptick at the end of the Clinton years, we have lost the middle class prosperity that has fueled American democracy.

The issue isn't the growth of the economy, it is the distribution of the benefits of that growth.

The right wingers are correct in a way, we are not in a recession. We are in the middle of a class war, and the upper classes are winning.

[housewolf]

19. But wait... wait.... what about the conservative mantra that Americans are the greatest people in

the world???? I know I've heard those words out of George Will's mouth on other occasions...

George Will, when did you become a "hater" of Americans?????

George Will, secret hater of Americans. Who knew????



:mad:

[izquierdista]

20. Swill

George's career really took off when he dropped the 'S' from his last name. Prior to that, people would see one of his editorials and say "this smells worse than last week's garbage; throw it out!" Yes, dropping the 'S' left him with a much more palatable moniker, one which invokes nostalgia of Triumph and of the leader descending out of the clouds to address the assembled masses.

As far as accuracy, he suffers from the same symptom that infects all Republican 'thinking' (and I use the term loosely): interpreting all facts to fit in a preconceived model of how the world works; ignoring data that might contradict your worldview; idolatry of the "free market"; and elitism. The last one is particularly rich, as they use it to tear down anyone offering a ladder for other to climb up to their heights.

[jwirr]

21. How old is Cal? I read him when I was a kid in school, I'm now 67. He

should retire.

[DailyGrind51]

22. I hope those right-wingers keeping talking that way!

It just makes all those fence-sitters jump off to the left.

[colonel odis]

23. the thought of republicans calling anybody "whiners" and "crybabies" is hilarious.

[Captain Hilts]

24. I agree. We spend a lot of time whining about low tax rates and most the world can't get water to..

drink.