Again With the Depression? Great.

That other depression seems to be inspiring nostalgia, if only rhetorically. (Associated Press)

Still, even if things are as bad as the lawmakers say, there is a danger that the constant alarms, intended to speed passage of Obama's stimulus plan, could also cause people to hide their money in their mattresses. Dorgan, a third-term senator from North Dakota, gave his colleagues an education in this notion of consumer confidence yesterday. "If the American people are confident," he said on the Senate floor, "they buy a suit of clothes, they buy a car, buy a house, take a trip, do the things that expand this economy."

Unfortunately, by the time Dorgan got to his consumer-confidence lecture, he had given consumers scant reason for confidence. "This clearly is a wreck," he said, adding phrases such as "the whole tent came collapsing down," "financial wreckage," "into the ditch" and "this system that has collapsed around us."

Plenty of Dorgan's colleagues shared his gloom. On the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) warned that the economy will be "in a deeper recession or a depression" if the stimulus bill does not pass. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) was already referring to the current economy as "this recession-slash-depression."

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) countered that the higher debt could mean that "this country's economy will completely collapse. It will be worse than the Great Depression."

Earlier in the stimulus debate, Baucus had warned that "we could get pretty close" to the Great Depression, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned that "we've got to do something to turn this around or we will be there."

Obama was hinting at the same thing in Indiana yesterday. "I don't want to lie to people," he said, "because the situation we face could not be more serious." That, of course, was a preamble to the president's message: His stimulus plan, once passed by Congress, will "put Americans back to work."

If they're not too depressed to get out of bed, that is.

At last night's news conference, Obama, aided by the likes of ABC's Jake Tapper, who pronounced the economy in a "free fall," spent most of an hour talking about grim things. "The party is now over. . . . Stop the downward spiral. . . . Make sure that the economy doesn't continue to tank. . . . This is an unprecedented crisis."

The Washington Post's Michael Fletcher tried to lighten things up with a question about Alex Rodriguez's steroid use. But Obama couldn't shake the Great Depression. "I think it's depressing news," he said, "on top of what's been a flurry of depressing items when it comes to major league baseball."