The bleaker effects of the nation's credit downgrade could be clearer Monday when the markets open, but Sunday's back-and-forth on morning news shows over where to stick the blame was a grim portent of prospects for a bipartisan solution. 

John Chambers, managing director of Standard & Poor's, warned that the nation faces a one-in-three chance of a further reduction in creditworthiness.

"If the fiscal position of the United States deteriorates further or if the political gridlock becomes more entrenched, that could lead to a downgrade," Chambers said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

The political gridlock that contributed to S&P's decision to make the first-ever reduction in the nation's AAA credit rating to AA+ was evident Sunday, with members of both parties agreeing the blame is shared - but mostly the other guy's fault.

"If we had defaulted on our debt, the consequences would have been dramatic and lasting," Obama 2012 campaign strategist David Axelrod said on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

"It was the wrong thing to do to push the country to that point," Axelrod said. "It was something that should never have happened that clearly is on the backs of those who were willing the see the country default: those very strident voices in the tea party."

Axelrod called Friday's action by S&P's "a tea party downgrade," a reproach echoed verbatim on NBC's "Meet the Press" by Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

"I think this is one of the most telling, important moments in our country's history right now," Kerry said.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean took a stronger tone on CBS, suggesting the tea party has been "smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it" and said of the entire default and downgrade morass, "this is a tea party problem."

"They are totally unreasonable and doctrinaire and not founded in reality," the former Vermont governor said of the congressional tea party members.

Taking issue on the same CBS program, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said of the tea party, "Thank God they're here."

If Congress had listened to the tea party, there would be $4 trillion in deficit reduction in the works, Graham said.

The problems that contributed to the nation's first-ever credit downgrade preceded the tea party's arrival in Congress, according to Graham. He said President Barack Obama's policies have failed to address rising unemployment, plummeting housing prices and soaring gasoline prices.

"If he were in the Southeastern Conference, he would be fired as a coach. He would not have his contract renewed," Graham said of the president.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona called the crisis a failure of leadership - by the president.
"I think it's failed presidential leadership when you don't put forward a plan, a specific proposal, to work off of," McCain said on NBC. "Previous presidents certainly have when we [were] in a crisis. And, by the way, talking about hostages, lately the Democrats have been calling us terrorists. So we need to lower that level of rhetoric, obviously."

White House officials, meanwhile, continued raising doubts about S&P's analysis, saying the rating agency relied on flawed math and faulty analysis to reach its conclusion.

The Treasury Department late Friday discovered an accounting error by S&P and in calculating the nation's ratio of debt to gross domestic product. The ratings agency acknowledged the mistake but downgraded anyway.

"They made a $2 trillion math error, and they didn't check their work," White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Goolsbee, who is departing the administration to return to Chicago, said Congress should move on the free-trade agreements, infrastructure bank and other initiatives the White House has been pushing as drivers for jobs and growth.

"If we could at least show that Washington could do something, they could agree on something - I guess I just keep asking for the sake of the economy, can't we wait on the things that we're going to yell at each other about and start on the things that we agree on?" he said.

Chambers said there were multiple factors at play in the downgrade - notably some longstanding financial and political issues.

"We have been saying for some time that the fiscal trajectory of the United States was on a bad path and that the political gridlock in Washington leads us to conclude that policymakers don't have the ability to proactively put the public finances of the U.S. on a sustainable footing," Chambers said.

Congressional leaders in just over a week will name 12 members of a bipartisan super committee tasked with carving more deficit reduction from a deal struck last week to hold off fiscal default.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the Budget Committee, warned that anticipation about the committee is already overblown, saying, "I don't think this is going to be a committee that fixes all of our fiscal problems."

"I am not putting my stock in this committee," Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think people are overemphasizing what this committee will achieve."

Ryan, a key player in the budget debate, said he spoke with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) about committee membership but declined to say whether he sought or secured a place on the panel.

Ryan also faulted Democrats for contributing to the fiscal crisis through a persistent unwillingness to work on entitlement reform.

"Both political parties are responsible for the mess we have right now," Ryan said. But, "I would argue that over the last couple of years, we have gone deeply in the wrong direction."

While some panelists on the Sunday shows questioned the political tone of S&P's analysis, Axelrod said the White House agrees that political progress must be part of the larger efforts on the economy.
A persistent subtext to discussion about the downgrade was worry about the markets. Bill Miller, CIO of Legg Mason Capital Management, said Monday's opening will be closely watched.

"The S&P downgrade injects further uncertainty to the markets, and the markets hate uncertainty," Miller said on "Fox News Sunday." "Wall Street had a bad week last week; there is a lot of panic overall in the markets and I expect a lot of volatility, and again, it's all about uncertainty. We just don't know until the markets react."

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