Former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas resigned on Friday, July 21, 2008 as the top advisor and co-chair of John McCain's election efforts. Phil Gramm, the man behind the curtain of McCain's economic policy, had this to say, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline," said Gramm. "You've heard of mental depression this is a mental recession."

With gas prices eating into the cautionary spending of what's left of the middle class, and the housing bust, and unemployment, and rising food, and rising costs of everything, it was a gross misstep for Phil Gramm to make public comments such as this. "Misery sells newspapers," he also said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

Gramm later tried to clarify his comments by saying, "the whiners are the leaders. Hell, the American people are victims, but it didn't quite come out that way in the story."

These comments make Gramm a terrible politician and a bit of an idiot but does that make him wrong? Have our leaders become whiners I wonder? It seems to me they are certainly more concerned with pointing fingers at each other and with making money than with solving the problems that face us.

And what about average Americans? I look around sometimes and secretly think to myself, what if we had to start over here from scratch? Would people land at Plymouth for a week, turn around and get right back on the ship and go back to England and crazy King George? Or worse would we grossly underestimate the realities of the situation and go off half-cocked and unprepared into the wilderness?

I know our problems are not imaginary, but what about our ability to solve them? I do believe, if we all put our talent and drive toward fixing what ails us, we could accomplish what many say cannot be done.

Maybe all this is a symptom of something deeper. I have noticed something disturbing in the work place over my career, people putting their energy into keeping their job and not in doing their job...and they seem to be the ones getting ahead.

There are many jobs, of course, where this cannot be done, but in management positions, there is a propensity for avoiding tough decisions, speaking the truth, and taking chances. The greatest job security for the rest of us is learning to keep our mouths shut when jumping up and down and screaming, "The Emperor has no clothes, the Emperor has no clothes," seems the only rational response.

Leadership, critical thinking, and vision appear sadly missing, not just among our politicians, but among people in general. I certainly do not know how to solve the countries problems, but it seems to me it starts with asking the right questions and then shutting up and listening...no whining required.