Weisenthal is leaving out some pertinent info from his blurb in order to cover for Obama. He leads one to believe the sole reason for the potential downgrade is because of a potential default. Moody's real concern is there won't be meaningful progress toward "reversing the country's upward debt trajectory." In other words, the pressure will be too large on the Republicans to insure there is no default and thus they will agree to a debt ceiling increase without any meaningful cost reduction in the long run.
Of course, a real journalist would have explained that.
>> Moody’s had previously indicated that its stable outlook on the Aaa rating was based on the assumption that meaningful progress would be made within the next eighteen months in adopting measures to reverse the country’s upward debt trajectory. The debt limit negotiations represent a real near-term opportunity for agreement on a plan for fiscal consolidation. If this current opportunity passes, Moody’s believes that the likelihood of anything significant being accomplished before the next presidential election is reduced, in part because the two parties each hopes to capture both a congressional majority and the presidency in the 2012 election, after which the winning party could achieve its own agenda. Therefore, failure to reach an agreement as part of the current negotiations would increase the likelihood of a negative outlook in the near term, because the upward debt trajectory would still be in place. At present, this appears the most likely outcome, in Moody’s opinion.