In their rush to accuse former Sen. Phil Gramm of calling Americans "whiners," the media have conveniently neglected to mention who Gramm, an economic advisor to Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, was actually criticizing during his interview with The Washington Times.
"The media is a leading indicator of a downturn and it's a lagging indicator of an upturn because you got a human interest story of people losing their jobs," Gramm said. "Misery sells newspapers."
As my colleague Scott Whitlock pointed out, the media have played a big role in drumming up negativity and pessimism about the economy. Gramm criticized the media for ignoring positive things that are happening with the economy. In fact, he boasted about America and its economy.
"There are still a lot of good things happening in the American economy. We're more competitive internationally. We're in the midst of an export boom in manufacturing," he said.
He also gave international perspective that a lot of media coverage of the U.S. economy has lacked.
"We have been huge beneficiaries of the change which has occurred," Gramm said. "The losers have been countries like India and China and yet you just hear this constant whining, complaining about our loss of our competitiveness, America in decline. We've never been more dominant."
