Did Gephardt borrow the "miserable failure" line from a classic Christmas story? I was just watching
It's a Wonderful Life, as I like to do every Christmas season (it's a great movie for Deaniacs), and noticed that Potter called Peter Bailey (George Bailey's father) a "miserable failure".
Hmm. If this is where the line came from, it's an interesting twist - the evil conservative used it to describe the compassionate liberal.