Obama: "Downgrade was my fault..."

Ok, that's not a direct quote. He didn't say it in exactly those words. But what else could this mean?

On Friday, we learned that the United States received a downgrade by one of the credit rating agencies — not so much because they doubt our ability to pay our debt if we make good decisions, but because after witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system’s ability to act. The markets, on the other hand, continue to believe our credit status is AAA. In fact, Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about good investments, said, “If there were a quadruple-A rating, I’d give the United States that.” I, and most of the world’s investors, agree.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem. The fact is, we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction. That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office.

He took office 931 days ago. Knowing, according to Obama himself, that "we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction." During those 931 days, he has proposed and authorized new spending of trillions of dollars. The US government debt has increased at an annualized 13% rate since his inauguration. During the first two years of his administration, his party controlled the Congress. And, despite the fact that "we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us" that there was a problem, he has done not one thing, not a single one, that didn't make the problem worse rather than better.

So obviously, he's implicitly confessing that he and his party should get the lion's share of the credit for the downgrade.

On which point he's clearly correct...