Not long ago, former senator and McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm famously told us that America has become “a nation of whiners.” This week the whiners came out in force. On Monday House Republicans began whining loudly about how mean Nancy Pelosi was, in a speech before the failed bailout vote, for citing the Republican Party’s culpability in bringing about the financial meltdown that was rocking Wall Street and the world. Graham himself, as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, had played a major part in the collapse through his reckless deregulation policies over the years. Now here were his colleagues whining plaintively about how harsh it was to hear the truth. Being scolded by Nancy Pelosi was unacceptable, it just wasn’t bipartisan. They picked up their toys and went home, leaving the bailout deal undone.

So let’s see. Republicans have for decades now been saying nasty, often exaggerated or altogether untrue, things about Democrats, turning the very word “liberal” into some kind of hideous epithet. Republicans have been using demeaning, offensive, disrespectful and downright anti-democratic tactics to pass laws (or evade them), but when the Democrats get a little fresh by actually pointing out how Republican  foolishness has gotten us into this mess, they start pouting and forget the seriousness of their work. Perhaps they never really took the work all that seriously in the first place.

Phil Gramm, we have seen your whiners and they are y’all.