Some Standard And Poors Guy Says It Out Loud

So an exec at S&P comes out says - sort of - that the GOP is the reason for the downgrade.

What he said was (and I'm paraphrasing), "There are certain elements in Congress who were saying that default was not a big deal.  That's not the way a AAA country acts."

Well, yeah.

Of course there was only one party saying that default was not a big deal, but let's not stoop to calling names, shall we.

Saw something similar in Matt Bai's piece about the Iowa GOP debate.  The crystallizing moment of that debate was when the Fox guy asked, "Would you veto a deficit reduction deal that had $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue increases?"  And EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM RAISED THEIR HANDS.

Now any sane commentator would note that this is not sane.  That this represents the failure to compromise that is the hallmark of the modern GOP and is fiscally stupid.  Bai mentions that in his piece.

Then, after justifiably excoriating the GOP for being intransigent and, well, ignorant, he says, "Well, the Democrats would have done the same thing if Social Security cuts were on the table."

It's the reflexive "both sides do it" that allows the GOP to get away with being insane.  Especially since
A) Social Security isn't a problem
and
B) Medicare is, and Obama DID offer a compromise on both SS and Medicare.  He did offer to effectively cut benefits by pegging SS to a different inflation metric.

So, it was objectively false and subjectively misleading.

OTOH, we have seen the generic ballot move significantly towards Democrats.

So, even though S&P doesn't say "Tea partiers caused the downgrade."  And Matt Bai can't refrain from "Both sides are bad." It seems as if the public is getting the message anyway.


UPDATE: Here's a nice summary of the S&P thing:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/whos-really-responsible-for-us-debt-downgrade.php?ref=fpblg