We are doomed

Standard & Poor’s Downgrade Seen as Adding Urgency to Debt Panel - NYTimes.com

Even before the panel is appointed [this would be the very panel referred to in the headline, above, as the "debt panel"], its mission is expanding. Its role is not just to cut the annual budget deficit and slow the explosive growth of federal debt but also to appease the markets and help restore the United States’ top credit rating of AAA. Otherwise, taxpayers may eventually have to pay more in interest for every dollar borrowed by the Treasury.

Emphasis mine.

So now we have this possibly extralegal "super congress," the "debt panel" (which sounds so much like "death panel" it's really creepy) avidly licking the boots of the private-sector Standard & Poors, one of the companies that, arguably, helped cause this mess in the first place, and we are to think this will somehow turn out well?

Can you spell "fat chance"?