In other news, S&P’s downgrade isn’t so bad after all

Last updated on: August 6, 2011 at 4:29 pm by Dave Griffey

In other news, S&P’s downgrade isn’t so bad after all 2011-08-06T16:29:00-04:00 Dave Griffey

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At least that’s what they’re saying in many news outlets, and that’s what Democrats are insisting. Take Barney Frank. Why on MSNBC earlier, I heard him say S&P; was wrong for saying there was anything big about the process of agreeing on the debt. Why he insisted that even had we missed the deadline by a few days, there was still plenty of money to take care of things and avoid default. Several news agencies have assured us of the same thing, and reminded us that this is just S&P; after all, either it doesn’t matter or it’s all part of some vast [fill in the blank] conspiracy. There are other agencies that haven’t downgraded us, and in all likelihood, this won’t impact the average American in any event. Not that we shouldn’t care of course. But it isn’t, you know, the end of the world or anything.

Now, this does sound a little different from a week ago, where we were assured that missing the deadline would touch off Armageddon. And of course we had to get the process in line and stop messing around with stalemates and cantankerous politicians who wouldn’t compromise since it could cause something like S&P; to downgrade, and that would be catastrophic.

But you see, that was last week’s undeniable truth. That was the narrative of a week ago. In the Internet age, 5 seconds is approximately 4.5 seconds past the average attention span, and what happened a year ago is about when the Pyramids were constructed. The media, every bit a player in our age of punditry and partisanship over principles, stands by and aids or attacks according to its own ideals and agendas, not being overly concerned that anyone cares what is true. In short, good luck finding out what is really true in our world.

Think about that. Can we even know? Sure, partisanship and punditry have been around since the beginning of time. But there always seemed to be an umbrella of common values and common sense that said it was time to put the agendas and ideals aside for the greater concerns. There was a point where someone, somehow demanded some shred of evidence and measured it against a collective fail-safe common sense of priority. Hence Republicans could go to Nixon and say ‘You’re out of here, you’ve crossed the line.’ Or Democrats could abandon Jimmy Carter’s inept and impotent leadership and try to give Ronald Reagan a chance for the good of our country. Or Republicans could, again, abandon George H.W. Bush because he betrayed their trust and demonstrated weakness in handling the problems of the day.

But somewhere between 1992 and 1999, when almost the entire left of our nation said ethics, truth, morality, character, perjury, sexual intimidation, affairs, slander and abuse of the office of president to carry it out, family loyalty, and just about any other trait no longer mattered as long as we had plenty of money (while standing by and watching economists warning of out of control debt be obliterated by the president’s axe men), we became a country that said ‘we don’t care.’ Facts? We don’t care. Data? We don’t care. Promises? We don’t care. Ethics? We don’t care.

We care about one thing: Our side winning. And nothing can happen to this country that we aren’t willing to allow to happen if only our side wins. Truth? What is truth?, Pilate asked Jesus all those years ago. And by the 21st century, America has lost any ability or any concern about even trying to find an answer. If only our side wins.

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