TIGERHAWK: Is It Smart For The Administration To Attack S&P? “Now, when the Secretary of the Treasury starts popping his veins with rage over S&P’s decision, he looks just like an intemperate CEO who loses his mind because some analyst downgrades his stock. No difference, and with the same result: The angry response only enhances the credibility of the analyst (or rating agency) that issues the downgrade. Tim Geithner’s defensive rant runs the great risk of persuading investors that they should pay attention to S&P. . . . Of course, there are at least two less creditable reasons for the administration’s assault on S&P. First, it needs a political scapegoat, and the credit rating agencies are easy targets because of their shoddy practices in the mortgage market. Second, it must be hoping to intimidate Moody’s and Fitch in to maintaining the top rating. The problem with the intimidation approach, though, is that it must succeed or it will fail massively. If S&P emerges from the fight stronger rather than weaker (as I suspect it will), Moody’s and Fitch will notice that defying the Geithner Obama administration is not very dangerous.”

UPDATE: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac downgraded too.

Plus, President Downgrade to speak at 1 pm.

SO TODAY IS THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF INSTAPUNDIT: See the first week of posts here. I’ve decided to observe it by just blogging as usual!

IAIN MURRAY: What can the government do to promote real job growth? Quite simply, get out of the way.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Violent Urban Flashmobs And The End Of the Great Society. “The national media are doing their best to avoid looking too closely at this disturbing phenomenon, and perhaps for good reason. What the United States doesn’t need is a media firestorm that triggers copycat violence. Nevertheless some attention should be paid.”

RICOCHET INTO THE 1980s.

By the way, if you’re into ’80s nostalgia, you might like the LikeTotally80s website.

JOEL KOTKIN: Lost Angeles: The City Of Angels Goes To Hell. Bad government will do that. And that’s what L.A. has.

AT AMAZON, IT’S the sports equipment outlet sale.

COMMON GROUND: Is Obama Finally Bringing Left And Right Together?

TEXAS UTILITY OFFICIAL: “I don’t know what the EPA administrator is smoking in Washington.”

UPDATE: Ric Locke emails: “The situation is tolerably clear. Texas still has a functioning economy. That makes Obama look bad, so it must be suppressed to the maximum extent possible.”

So cynical.

GUNWALKER UPDATE: DEA Admits It Was Involved, Too.

ECONOMY: WaPo: Lack of jobs for blacks creates tension between black lawmakers and Obama.

WELL, SOME AREN’T SO CHOOSY: Michael Barone: Americans Want The Honor Of “Earned Success.” “This helps explain why majorities continue to oppose the Obama Democrats’ stimulus package and Obamacare. Democratic elites thought these laws would be seen as helping ordinary people. But they aren’t.”

I BELIEVE THE PREFERRED TERM IS “LEADING FROM BEHIND:” Obama Is Hiding From Downgrade, Bachmann Says.

UPDATE: President Downgrade braces for Meltdown Monday.

YA THINK? S&P bond rater: It’s the debt, stupid; Update: S&P official: Another downgrade will come if we don’t reduce long-term debt. “Actually, the Tea Party caucus in Congress had it right. The bond raters needed to see the US take a significant step towards ending deficit spending and getting future liabilities under control. The problem with the lack of consensus came from the resistance of Democrats to the fiscal realities of the situation we face. Instead of addressing the real problems, Democrats blocked any attempt to deal with the entitlement crises and would only agree to address discretionary spending.”

Which is, of course, what the Tea Party folks have been saying all along. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t room for some revenue enhancements here and there.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT OVER THE WEEKEND: Why The GOP Should Give Obama Some Tax Increases.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: With Whose Generals Does Turkey Plan To Threaten Assad? “Assad is capable of reading a newspaper, and knows full well that the United States is broke and tuned-out and that twelve percent of Turkey’s serving admirals and generals are in prison. He also knows the Turkish military is deeply demoralized.”

RASMUSSEN: New Low: Just 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent Of The Governed.

Here’s something I wrote on the subject during those halcyon days when a full 21% thought that.

GORDON CROVITZ: Beijing’s Crash Course In News Censorship. “China’s inability to control new media has emboldened the traditional press.”

MICKEY KAUS: Greece Could’ve Used A Tea Party, No?

Is it really clear that, thanks to the Tea Party, the U.S.’s creditors are at greater risk than they were, say, two years ago? Yes, the Teeper “madmen” have made default–through a failure to raise the debt ceiling–thinkable in a way it wasn’t before. On the other hand, they’ve made changing the trajectory of federal spending thinkable in a way it wasn’t before. Lower spending makes it easier to raise the revenues to close the budget gap, no? Greece could have used a Tea Party. . . . If Congress had just extended the debt ceiling with no strings attached, as it had done 60 or 70 times before, would S&P have downgraded? Hard to believe. If not, then why would a debt ceiling extension plus some spending cuts provoke a downgrade? Aren’t spending cuts progress, credit-rating-wise?

Plus this:

Psst, Jake Weisberg! I thought you wanted to limit the size of the federal government to 22% of GDP. So why are you lamenting that even the unreached Obama/Boehner “grand bargain” was “imbalanced in favor of spending cuts over revenues by a ratio of 4-to-1.” If we’re going to reach 22%, shouldn’t you favor spending cuts? (Not in a recession, you say? But the cuts were heavily backloaded so they’d come after the recession is over, at least in theory.)

Hey, they blamed the Tea Party for Jared Loughner, too. They always blame the Tea Party, because they don’t like the Tea Party, and they want Americans to dislike it, too, so they can continue with business as usual until the last possible moment. And if Greece had had a Tea Party, all the apparatchiks would have called it crazy and destructive too, because it would have threatened their short-term interests, which, as has become clear, is all apparatchiks think about . . .

UPDATE: “Tea Party Downgrade”? They Can’t Possibly Sell That.

The downgrading of U.S. debt is an extreme embarrassment for the government in general, and the Obama administration in particular. So the administration has reacted in the only way it knows: by denouncing Standard & Poors, and by blaming its political opponents, the supporters of the Tea Party, for the downgrade.

The administration’s knee-jerk responses are somewhat inconsistent: if S&P was wrong to downgrade the debt, and the downgrade was based on a mathematical error, then it is hard to see how the downgrade can also be the Tea Party’s fault. . . .

Let’s take a walk down memory lane. What did the Democrats do with respect to federal debt during the four years they controlled both Houses of Congress? Here is a summary of the deficits the Democrats racked up during that time:

FY 2008 — $460 billion
FY 2009 — $1,410 billion ($1.4 trillion)
FY 2010 — $1,300 billion ($1.3 trillion)
FY 2011 — $1,600 (estimated) ($1.6 trillion)

Of the $14.5 trillion national debt, nearly $4.8 trillion–one-third of the total–was incurred during that four-year period when the Congress was exclusively controlled by the Democrats. Moreover, and equally important, during that time the Democrats did nothing to assure the markets that they have a long-term plan to deal with the country’s burgeoning debt. On the contrary, for more than two years the Congressional Democrats have refused to adopt or even to propose a budget! If you are looking for the reason why rating agencies have lost faith in the ability of our government to get its spending and debt under control, you need look no farther.

If you can’t even propose a budget, you don’t get to blame others for the downgrade.

JESSE WALKER OFFERS YOUR CREEPY QUOTE OF THE DAY:

From an essay in the Sunday New York Times: “The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led.” No, that isn’t an historian explaining the rise of Mussolini. It’s the Emory psychologist Drew Westen, writing wistfully about the leader he wishes Obama would be.

Sheesh.

READER JOHN LUCAS EMAILS:

I hope you will consider this, as it is from a slightly different perspective than I have seen elsewhere. Perhaps this is a result of my background and the fact that I have a son in special ops on his fifth combat deployment. Maybe if you say something about this, someone in the government will see it and think twice before they run their mouth the next time we suffer significant casualties.

One of the most despicable reactions I have seen from the US to this incident was the fact that the initial press reports quoted an unnamed government official as confirming that the KIAs were from Seal Team 6 and the 160th Avn. Bde., which is the special ops aviation unit. This unnamed person requested anonymity because the families of the KIAs had not yet been notified. Whoever this irresponsible government official was, he should be drawn and quartered. I can tell you from personal experience, when families back her he reports of a downed helicopter or some other incident with significant casualties, they are on pins and needles until the names are announced. Their hearts race every time the telephone rings. The fear is magnified if you think the casualties are may be from the area where your loved one is deployed.

The Specials Ops community is very small. And, the number of Navy Seals and 160th Aviation personnel in Afghanistan is even smaller. From the time this government creature could not resist making his unauthorized disclosure, he put every family of every deployed Seal and 160th crew member through unbelievable mental anguish, waiting to hear if their loved one was one of those killed. Having identified the units that the KIAs were from, he put every family on notice that there was a very high chance that their husband, father or son was dead. Is this guy so stupid that he didn’t know this or did he just not care? That some government official would do this shows how out of touch they are with the military and military culture.

On another note, I hope this puts the stake through the heart of Bill O’Reilly’s tasteless promotion for the “Navy Seals-1 Bin Laden-0” t-shirts. I have been offended by them ever since he began pimping them on FNC. My objection was that they treat this as if it is a game, keeping score like a soccer match. It is no game as this incident starkly reminds us. Such efforts to trivialize war should be shunned by decent people.

I thought people weren’t supposed to leak this sort of information to the press. . . .

ALSO, OBAMA’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE: Facebook: We Have Proof Ceglia’s Contract Is Fake.