Are you hearing that noise, too? It sounds like a baby's cry, doesn't it?

It's more of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's theatrical grandstanding over the stimulus plan.

Senator John McCain and Representative John Boehner also moaned all week long about the bill's lack of bipartisanship, and how this debt was placing an extraordinary burden on the backs of our grandchildren.

The debt from the Iraq War apparently doesn't pose that much trouble for them.

Republicans resolved, in the wake of brutal election losses last November, to unify over fiscal conservatism.

With the tide of unemployment close to 10 percent and no crest in sight, the timing couldn't have been more absurd.

Watching them patting themselves on the back during Sunday morning television's political talk fest, you would think that they emergency-landed the economy in the Potomac instead of in the crapper.

Republicans have banked on President Obama's popularity waning while the economy worsens. They see it as a winning strategy for 2010.

Let the economy correct itself, a pitiful euphemism for sit back and do nothing - finally became the clear Republican contribution that Obama rejected.

And rightly so.

Everywhere you turn, the pain caused by growing unemployment is real. Last week's image of the homeless woman living in her car with her son, asking for the president's help, was visceral. It was Obama's well-handled Katrina moment.

There's no question that the country is out on a limb.

So far, the auto industry bailout hasn't worked. And housing and unemployment reports due out this week are probably going to look bleak, too.

Here it is, the worse crisis in US history since World War II, and Republicans couldn't be prouder obstructionists.

Even though John McCain's home state has one of the largest budget deficits in the country, he gets to say that he hates the stimulus plan as it funnels money to Arizona.

There's less pressure to cut teachers and police officers, though Graham calls it pork.

The Titanic economy hits the ice and Republicans say there's no rush to find a solution.

But they'll grab a few of those lifeboats.