Always hilarious McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds confronted rumors that a John McCain administration might have Phil "Americans are just a Bunch of Whiners" Gramm as Secretary of Treasury, by refusing to deny the possibility. 

Great just what this country needs, the guy who got us into this mess in charge of our economy.

More important, Gramm slipped language into 1999 legislation that essentially deregulated all the fancy new Wall Street products that got us into this mess. His wife, Wendy Gramm, used her position as chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to legitimize the questionable trading practices that led to the Enron scandal. Instead of recognizing that Gramm's radical free-market views were out of step with the realities of the post-Enron world, McCain hired him as his top economic adviser in the 2008 campaign. Had Gramm not said that the United States is "a nation of whiners" in a "mental recession" but facing no serious economic difficulty, he would have likely been McCain's secretary of the Treasury. The gaffes meant Gramm had to resign his formal position with the campaign, but he has continued to informally advise McCain on the economy (they appeared together at the Aspen Institute this summer) and would likely be rehabilitated in a McCain presidency.

Even John McCain wouldn't put a guy like Foreclosure Phil in charge of the US economy, right? It must all just be a viscious rumor that can be put to rest by flattly saying, "Phil Gramm will not be Treasury Secretary."