Americans are making less while working harder than ever, when they can find the work, that is. Bush’s tax cuts have gone mostly to the rich, and what scraps the middle and lower classes have been tossed have been wholly eaten up by other costs–just the price of gas alone has eaten up every non-gazillionaire tax cut, many times over. We’re hemorrhaging jobs, suffering from fuel-driven inflation, and Americans are hurting–bad.

So what does John McCain’s chief economic advisor have to say to Americans?

“You’re all whiners!! This isn’t a recession! You’re just imagining it!”

And sadly, that characterization is not an exaggeration:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” Gramm was quoted as saying.

He goes on to say that the United States has “never been more dominant” and has “benefited greatly” from globalization.

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “Misery sells newspapers,” [Former Senator Phil] Gramm added. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”

If Americans were just reading about it in the newspaper, then things wouldn’t be so bad. The trouble is, most Americans are living this horror show of an economy. Perhaps Gramm, living large as he is, simply has no clue as to what actual Americans experience.

Now, the question has already come up: Obama caught hell for a full month or more for saying that some Americans are “bitter.” Now McCain’s top advisor has called all Americans “whiners” who don’t know what their own economic conditions are like.

Is this far enough from McCain that the media might actually give it some air time? Somehow I doubt it. But you can be certain of the fact that if an Obama surrogate had said this, it’s be “Breaking News” 24/7 for the next week or more.

The McCain Campaign reaction?

A McCain official said: “Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views.”

Um, then you shouldn’t be hiring this guy to be McCain’s chief economic advisor then, dude.