Poor Standards

I guess no one should be surprised that, as all of the R candidates for president have agreed the S&P downgrade of the US credit rating must be Obama's fault (even if they're not sure why), it's evident that they either haven't read the report, or simply ignored it. On the other hand, maybe we should excuse them: No one in the media seems to have read it, either.

Have you seen, anywhere, in any media, or even heard reported or repeated on NPR, the following sentence? “We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”

It’s right there on Page 4 of the official Standard & Poors “Research Update” – the actual report on what they did and why – published on August 5th as the explanation for why they believe Congress – and even the Gang of Twelve – will be unable to actually deal with the US debt crisis. [Preceding emphases mine, naturally.]

Now S&P isn't exactly riding a wave of credibility lately, and I'm not arguing about the rightness or lack thereof of their decision. They said what they said, did what they did, correct or not. But as teabaggRs line up behind the report and squeak their scorn at Obama over it, you'd think their arguments would have at least a passing connection to the actual stated reasons for the downgrade. Those reasons aren't really subject to interpretation, and it doesn't seem too much to ask that pretenders to leadership of a formerly semi-credible party (not to mention our whole country) would deal with it.

In a world, that is, where their party had even the most minimal grasp of or concern for fact. That world, tragically, has long since disappeared from the Universe.

But it's even worse than all that. The tactics used by Congressional Republicans, with nary a one of them objecting, have made it clear to the world that the US is no longer governable. When a major political party has resorted, as its main political modus operandi, to the threat of drowning the baby in the bathwater in order to get its way, there's nothing left of good governance, and no reason to hope for its return anytime soon. [Need proof: teabaggers are actually happy about the damage they've done!]