When You Smile for the Camera, I Know I'll Love You Better

For those who get their political insights from ACORN flyers, bumperstickers, and Paul Krugman columns, Phil Gramm has become a kind of shorthand for "evil Republican" in finance crisis matters in the same way Dick Cheney provided the same associational shortcut for the Iraq War

Well, Gramm is not taking this lying down and has taken to the pages of the W$J to declare that Loose Money and Politicized Mortgages Caused the Financial Market Crisis. This really should be the formulation that any GOP'er who has to appear in the media should use when confronted by the goofs who say "deregulation" is to blame.

More interesting is the picture that accompanied Gramm's piece. Check out this rogue's gallery from 1999.

Yes, that's Chris Dodd and John Edwards lurking in the background. I'd say only 25% of the people in this picture are out of office. Those that are - like Clinton and Greenspan - may be out of office, but are certainly not out of public life.

I will stop myself from making the typical argument for term limits. However, I will point out that it is a weakness in our republic that - for all the talk of change that have accompanied the last 5 presidential elections, it's incredible how the same few thousand people return to DC year after year, regardless of the results of their efforts.