Kathleen Parker's column discussing her plane ride and discussion with President Obama includes the following interesting insight into the President's thinking about the economy:

Things are not as bad now as they were in the 1930s or even the early '80s when, Obama reminded us, he was still in college. Young people . . . are simply unfamiliar with hardship, he said.

"So for a huge number of people out there, they're just not accustomed to seeing a bad economy with really high unemployment and very bearish markets. . . . What we're going through now is nothing compared to what our grandparents went through during the Great Depression."

It's interesting.  As this clip shows, back in July, candidate Obama had a lot to say about Phil Gramm's unfortunate characterization of many in this country as "whiners."

But isn't Obama essentially saying the same thing now?