Day: August 6, 2011

In explaining why it was lowering the U.S. credit rating late on Friday, Standard & Poor’s singled out tea party obstructionism on the economy:

“The political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed,” said S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies.

“The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.”

“Brinkmanship” is putting it politely, of course. A better description is economic terrorism or political extortion.

It was the tea party, not the Democrats, who took the economy to the brink in the debt-ceiling negotiations, and yet, predictably, conventional wisdom in the Beltway has it that S&P was referring to everyone in Washington — that the hostage negotiators are just as bad as the hostage takers.

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