NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the S&P downgrade. Among the rightbloggers, the downgrade appears to be a terrible thing when mentioned in a paragraph including the word "Obama," but otherwise it's no big deal; in fact it can even be a positive good, so long as the author believes it may convince people to give up their Social Security in hopes that their neo-feudal overlords will give them a shed to lie in when they are too broken by work to move.

I don't think I'm being optimistic when I say that this probably won't go over with your average citizen, who may be tumbling to the fact that his alleged GOP saviors are in the thrall of a bunch of nuts who would kill him or anyone else in furtherance of their dogma. But it may not matter what he, you, or I think; the Villagers want full-on austerity, and probably believe that if the tea party people are a little dèclassè, at least their heartlessness is in the right place.

UPDATE. In the spirit of Shared Sacrifice, commenter EndoftheWorld asks, "Could you imaging the uproar we started seeing serious cuts in the sanctimonious blowhard industry? I mean, do we need a Cokie Roberts AND a Peggy Noonan? And paying a mexican child to cut and paste from AEI position papers has to be cheaper than keeping Krauthammer around." Well, now you're just talking crazy. If it weren't for the promise of such sinecures, young Republican weasels might avoid the think tanks and talk shops altogether, and take jobs as corporate lawyers or confidence men. Then America might lose its leadership position in the global bullshit market. We'd be lost!

While I am normally in perfect sync with Halloween Jack, I can't completely agree that this column represents "Megan McArdle... forced into a sudden attack of sanity." McArdle does see that the GOP shake-yer-foundations approach has been bad for the weakened economy, but then she has to spoil it by saying the Democrats are just as bad because... they blocked the elevation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. This absurd example of on-the-other-handism has been well-treated elsewhere, but it always bears repeating that Bork is a dangerous lunatic and if he were on the Court with the current crop of nuts, rightwing activists would no doubt have found a way to reverse Virginia v. Loving by now. For blocking him, the Dems of '87 don't deserve tongue-lashings about "borking" -- they deserve statues hard by the Jefferson Memorial and fresh flowers every morning.

UPDATE 2. If you want a quick refresher on Republican seriousness about deficits, I recommend Steve Benen's. Contra Verbal Kint, this may be the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.