Back in the old days, when I used to talk with people about the Monica Lewinsky affair, they would often say two things: "So, I guess we're criminalizing extra-marital sex now? If that's the case, you better arrest everyone who's ever been president..."
These arguments are pretty easily defeated with plain old facts. Let's take the second one first. Working backwards from Bill Clinton, I'll give you a sampling of presidents who are NOT credibly accused of having had extra-marital sex: George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. (I'm not even sure Nixon had intra-marital sex.)
So, that's five guys in succession who did not have extra-marital sex. Say goodbye to the "everybody does it" argument.
As for the argument about criminalizing extra-marital sex, I used to respond to that by saying something along these lines: "So, why was President Clinton found in contempt of court and fined $90,000? Why was his law license suspended in Arkansas for five years? Why was he suspended from the Supreme Court bar? You think he got all that because he cheated on his wife? No, he got all that because he lied under oath in the Paula Jones lawsuit."
What does all of this have to do with the S&P downgrade? Well, just as in the Lewinsky case, there's a nagging argument that we can finally defeat with the plain old fact of the downgrade.
Here's the argument (such as it is): "You know, it's odd, conservatives didn't seem to make much noise about spending and deficits when George W. Bush was in office, and I don't remember there being a Tea Party movement either. But then, a BLACK president shows up, and suddenly, conservatives find religion on fiscal policy, and the Tea Party springs up out of nowhere. Kind of funny, don't you think?"
This brings us back to the S&P downgrade. It's not a conservative thing or a liberal thing. It's an extra-political, extra-governmental entity saying EXACTLY what conservatives and Tea Partiers have been saying: "What we're doing is not sustainable. What's more, it's at a crisis point now, today...a crisis point we hadn't hit as recently as three years ago; a crisis point that coincides with the term of this particular administration."
So, unless you think S&P is racist, that they really should have given the U.S. a downgrade in 2008, but that they didn't want to do that to a white president, and that they didn't feel okay about the downgrade until they could hang it around the neck of a black president, you probably need to retire your racism argument, permanently. (An apology would be nice, too, but I won't wait for it.)
Footnote: Even before the S&P downgrade, these responses to claims of racism were available: (1) "Screw yourself, race baiter"; (2) "Conservatives DID make a lot of noise about this...it's just that you don't actually know any conservatives, read any conservatives, watch any conservatives on TV, or listen to any conservatives on radio, so you missed those conversations"; (3) "You know what else changed, aside from the presidency switching hands from a white man to a black man? In one year, spending jumped from 20.7% of GDP to 25% of GDP. The last time we hit 25% was during World War II. We're operating on a different plane than we were during the Bush administration."; and (4) "You know what else happened? The deficit jumped from 4.5% of GDP to 11% of GDP. The last time we hit 11% was during--you guessed it--World War II. Again, we're in uncharted territory here for peacetime, so a lot of people are worried."
Anklenote: Want an even simpler rebuttal? Here you go: "Yeah, it's a double standard. It happens all the time in politics. When people in our party commit a particular sin, we're much more forgiving than we are when people in your party commit the same sin. You guys do the same thing. It's human nature, and it's pretty standard politics. You know what it's NOT? Racism."
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