You can get whiplash trying to follow the status of Phill Gramm as part of McCain's campaign.  On the bus, off the bus, on the bus, under the bus.  The latest update has Gramm abruptly resigning from the campaign just in time for the usual Friday late afternoon press dump.

As reported by MSNBC: "Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm resigned Friday from his role as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign co-chairman, hoping to quiet the uproar that followed his comments that Americans had become a "nation of whiners" whose constant complaints about the U.S. economy show they are in a "mental recession."

This will change nothing as far as Gramm's influence on McCain regarding the enconomy.

And the two close friends can always have their usual tete-a-tetes so Gramm can make sure McCain, as poster boy for the Republican economic philosophy of the haves and have mores; the hell with the common good, is following the script to further damage the US economy for regular hardworking Americans.