American Politics As Usual

The media has spent the last few weeks cringing over the U.S. debt debate and now it seems to be a case of overreacting; it is not a worst-case scenario and (surprise!) other countries have their own issues to worry about, like say Norway and Sudan, with those pesky home terrorists and civil war and all. But Americans are playing politics as usual, thinking everyone....well, cares.

CNN is reporting that world reaction is mixed, because American debt has not been totally downgraded to "junk" status like Greece but simply down to AA. The dollar is still the world currency reserve (although China is complaining about this). But the overarching theme is that EVERYBODY blames American political fighting as usual for the escalation of the debt problem.

For all the enlightenment and democracy, we Americans only have two sides: "right" and "wrong" and we are increasingly unable to see anything in between as this is somehow caving in and selling out our ideals. Maybe it's time to take an objective look at our behavior; perhaps we'll see this childish anti-compromising Congressional process as the rest of the world does.