From the Washington Post:

Standard & Poor’s announced Friday night that it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time, dealing a symbolic blow to the world’s economic superpower in what was a sharply worded critique of the American political system.

Lowering the nation’s rating to one notch below AAA, the credit rating company said “political brinkmanship” in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings “fell short” of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future…

Conveniently done after the markets close in order to avoid a crash…and remember why we’re here:  because Obama and his Democrats tacked on an additional trillion a year in spending and didn’t want to give any of it up.  Just a couple hundred billion dollar cut next year – which would have had us still spending hundreds of billions more than in 2008 – would have done the trick.  It would have showed that we have the political will, right now, to deal with the debt.  But, nothing doing from Obama…he has to keep the money flowing to his special interest groups no matter what.

2012 can’t get here fast enough.