WASHINGTON -- Well, at least we're starting to get the procedure right. Washington has rediscovered the beauty of the boring. It's called "regular order," using the normal, routine, constitutional process to arrive at, for example, a budget.

Some of society's most intractable problems come not from its failures but from its successes. Often you can't get a good thing without paying a bad price.

The decision by Standard & Poor's to strip the United States of its AAA credit rating, for the first time, has triggered a barrage of catcalls against the umpire from the press box and Obama-ites.