WHAT!?!?!

The following piece was posted by Glenn Thrush today on Politico.com:

Bernanke, Paulson tiptoe around credit rating

One of the creepiest moments in today's five-hour bailout marathon was Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's questioning of Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke at the tail end of the hearing when the room had all but emptied out.

Does the bailout threaten the credit rating of the United States? Tester wanted to know.

Paulson stumbled around a bit -- and had to be told to speak directly into the microphone -- before saying that the $700 billion was just an initial payment and that much of the money was likely to be recouped.

"Everything we do effects the credit rating—but we believe this is the right thing to do," he added.

Bernanke spoke more directly to the point: "I don't think so – but I don't know how the rating agencies" calculate such scores. he said.

Soooo...we're supposed to trust these two Bozos (sorry Bozo) with between $700 billion and $2.5 trillion, but they can't even tell us what will happen to our collective credit rating?!?! In case you're unsure about who he is, Bernanke is the CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK...and he doesn't know "'how the rating agencies' calculate such scores"? You've got to be kidding me!

This lack of preparedness sounds eerily like the run-up to the Iraq War. The Bush Administration rushed through all the required "diplomacy," all the while tapping their feet and repeating warnings about Armageddon and then, when they got there, we realized they had lied about the reasons for going and didn't have a plan to get out!

But that took months! This financial "deal" (read: mugging) is only supposed to take a week!