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Obama's Chances Get a Downgrade It will be amusing to watch President Obama and his advisers try to squirm out of the S&P rating downgrade catastrophe. Amusing, for they'll say anything to avoid responsibility. Because when I say catastrophe, I mean political catastrophe, not economic. Political catastrophe for Obama. And he knows it. I doubt this one action is going to end up as a major economic hit. Are people really going to start avoiding Treasuries because one of three credit rating agencies have downgraded our debt from perfect to nearly perfect? I'm not an economist, but it doesn't make sense. But on a psychological level, this is a fundamental blow to the country, for which Obama will be held accountable. He is the serving president while for the first time ever, the country's creditworthiness has been downgraded. What was pristine no longer is. Everyone knows Boehner's not running the country. The Tea Party's not running the country. Even if you consider Boehner and the Tea Party to be mankind's worst enemies since the invention of cobras, it's still Obama's job to deal with them and get our economic house in order. And the charge is not being leveled by some rabid partisan. It is coming from something people are at least vaguely aware of as a stolid emblem of accountability: Standard & Poors. This is a major new weapon in the future Republican candidate's arsenal. "Mr. President, the country's credit was downgraded under your watch." Not under Bush. In fact, two and a half years into Obama's presidency. People understand credit ratings. Credit ratings say very basic things about a person's reliability. Low or reduced credit ratings connote a sense of irresponsibility and, more specifically, a penchant for overspending and an inability to manage finances. Obama will be associated with all these things in the public's mind, and for good reason. S&P is ultimately reacting to Obama's policies and his failure to conjure a solution to Washington's gridlock. The president has never emphasized deficit reduction. He's emphasized health care, electric vehicles, community college education and other things that require more spending, not less. And he's exorbitantly increased spending, not just the deficit. As bad as Bush was about failing to make cuts while adding new outlays, Obama has raised spending from about 20 percent to nearly 25 percent of GDP. What really created the debt ceiling crisis of the past few weeks is not the Tea Party, but Obama. In fact, Obama created the Tea Party. So sit back and enjoy the finger pointing. It won't make a real difference. Americans are a bottom line people, and they know in this case who is wrecking the country's bottom line. Keith Koffler Editor, White House Dossier