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Fox's Neil Cavuto claimed he really didn't want to take up for Standard and Poor's and defend their record, but it didn't stop him from accusing the Congress from conducting a "witch hunt" in their defense now that investigations are being called for after they downgraded the United States' credit rating.

Apparently Cavuto and some of his cohorts on Fox have been carrying water for S&P for the last week or so.

From Media Matters -- Fox News Objects To S&P Downgrade Inquiry By Screaming "Witch Hunt":

Fox News personalities have expressed outrage that Congress is reportedly considering investigating Standard & Poor's (S&P) controversial decision to downgrade its U.S. credit rating. But S&P has significant credibility issues, and executives at rating agencies - including S&P - have routinely testified before Congress, including about their role in the Enron scandal and the financial crisis.

As Congress Prepares To Investigate S&P's "Downgrade" Of The U.S. Credit Rating ...

AP: Senate Moving To Investigate S&P's Downgrade Decision.

On August 8, the Associated Press reported that the Senate Banking Committee "is gathering information on Standard & Poor's decision to issue the first-ever downgrade of the government's credit rating." [Associated Press, 8/8/11] ...

Fox News Shouts Intimidation And "Witch Hunt" ...

Fox's Cavuto On Possible Investigation Of S&P: "You Can't Threaten Everyone."

From host Neil Cavuto's discussion of a possible Senate investigation of S&P with Larry Sabato on Your World: Read on...

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Appearing on CBS Monday, House Financial Services Committee ranking member Barney Frank (D-MA) pointed to growing military spending as one of the causes of S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit.

"I would hope there would be one bipartisan agreement we can reach and I've been working for," Frank told CBS' Nancy Cordes. "There is one area in American policy where we are doing things disproportionate to the rest of the world. We don't give our older people more medical care, we don't have a better retirement, we don't spend more on the environment. Where America is disproportionate is our extraordinary willingness to be the military policemen for the whole world."

"We spend far more of our economy as a national percentage on the military than just about any nation except a beleaguered nation like Israel, which has to do with self defense. We are spending well over $120 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan. The time has come to find a place where we could, I think, together, make some savings. So, I am -- that's going to be my mantra for the next few months."

"We could be the strongest nation in the world for $400 billion instead of $700 billion, or $450 billion instead of $700 billion," he added. "We could easily save more than $200 billion without in any way endangering our security."

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Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says that the tea party should not be blamed for the political brinkmanship that led to S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit because they have bent over backwards to compromise.

"We have actually done a lot of compromising," Chaffetz told ABC's Christiane Amanpour Sunday. "Remember, it was the tea party that really spurred -- I was the primary sponsor of 'Cut, Cap and Balance.'"

"Wait a minute," former Obama administration "Car Czar" Steve Rattner interrupted. "'Cut, Cap and Balance' was not a compromise."

"Yes, it was," Chaffetz replied. "It was a raising of the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion. And what is wrong in this country is that we aren't willing to have the discussion about a balanced budget amendment."

CNN's Jeanne Sahadi noted at the time that "Cut, Cap and Balance" exacerbated the problem.

"For starters, since the bill isn't expected to go anywhere in the Senate, lawmakers are wasting precious time needed to pass a debt ceiling increase before Aug. 2," she wrote.

In the end, Chaffetz did refused to compromise and vote for the final bipartisan compromise that raised the nation's debt ceiling.

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Rep. Paul Ryan said Sunday that S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit was a "vindication" Republican actions and his budget plan, which would end Medicare as it exists today.

"I am not very surprised with the downgrade," Ryan told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "We more or less saw it coming because we are the wrong fiscal path. We'll find out what spike in rates we are going to get. Obviously not only does it hurt the federal government and its ability to close deficits, but it hurts people. Car loans, home loans, all these things are going to go up. And so, it is because Washington has not gotten its fiscal house in order."

And to me, this is just more vindication of our actions. We passed a budget, which according to someone with S&P yesterday, would have prevented the downgrading from happening in the first place."

"Isn't that like a doctor saying, 'I did the operation perfectly but the patient died?'" Wallace wondered. "In its announcement, S&P condemned the political dysfunction here in Washington, the grid lock here in Washington... isn't the failure to compromise part of the problem?"

"Both political parties are responsible for the mess we have right," Ryan admitted. "This is not a Democrat or Republican problem only. Both parties got us to where we are. I would argue, though, in the last couple of years, we've gone deeply in the wrong direction."

"Yes, we haven't been able to get the kind of compromise because our partners on the other side of the ailes had been unwilling to reform the [entitlement] programs that the cause of the problem."

The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins questioned Sunday what sort of vindication Ryan had been claiming.

"Yes, it was those actions, debt ceiling hostage-taking that led to the downgrade. And the end result of the negotiations was massive budgetary austerity," Linkins wrote.

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You've just got to love what passes for "straight news" over at the Fox/Republican cable channel. During one of their "breaking news" segments after the news that Standard and Poor's decided to downgrade the AAA credit rating of the Unites States, who did they bring in to do some "objective" analysis? The American Spectator and Wall Street Journal's resident hack, John Fund.

And what was Fund's reaction to the downgrade? More austerity measures naturally.

And what did Fund completely ignore? This tidbit from the report issued by Standard and Poor's on their decision for making the downgrade.

(h/t Jamie)

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

Fund naturally thinks we should be taking it out on the hides of everyday working Americans to do something about our budget deficit. Ignoring completely that the Republicans have been the ones being absolutely rigid in their position that there will be no tax increases since they're all afraid their Uncle Grover will primary them.

I think we just got a preview here of what we're going to see from Fox 24/7 over the next week as they try to explain what happened with this downgrade. No questioning of whether we should even trust the ratings agency that got it all so wrong before the meltdown of the financial industries and more demands that we go after Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid or these vultures will never be satisfied.

UPDATE: And right on cue, one of our newly elected TeaBircher Republicans in the Senate, Mike Lee was chiming some of the same talking points in another "breaking news" segment following the one with Fund. Not only was he calling for austerity measures, but he was also still touting their ridiculous balanced budget amendment as well. And of course the problem in Lee's mind with protecting his rich campaign donors is that Washington is spending too much (code for they're doing things to help out working people and not corporate welfare or funding our military industrial complex) and they're borrowing too much. And of course with him also ignoring that the wealthiest 1% are being taxed at the lowest rates in ages and that we have a revenue problem they refuse to fix. I'm just wondering how much worse things have to get in the United States before the majority of the public starts to get wise to these liars because they actually start paying attention to what's going on and how ridiculous these talking points from the GOP are that do not match up to reality in any way, shape or form.

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As John already posted in the breaking news story, S&P has went ahead and downgraded the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+. Rachel talked to Rep. Barney Frank who is the former Chair of the House Financial Services Committee and the Washington Post's Ezra Klein about tonight's news, but first she went through some of the details that went on this evening.

Rachel Maddow read some of this part of S&P's decision to go ahead with the downgrade:

In its statement, S&P said that it had changed its view "of the difficulties of bridging the gulf between the political parties" over a credible deficit reduction plan.

S&P said it was now "pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics anytime soon."

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Barney Frank blasted Standard & Poor's for their poor record during the meltdown of the financial service industries and felt that they were trying to over compensate now for past mistakes. He also criticized them for being too lienent with their ratings on private enteprise, while being too harsh with their ratings of government from the federal level right on down to the states and local governments.

When asked if the recent debacle by our politicians in Washington over raising the debt ceiling was responsible for this happening, Frank pushed back and said if anything, this proved that ultimately the full faith and credit of the United States was not something that could be allowed to be defaulted on.

Ezra Klein wasn't quite as charitable about Congressman Frank's assessment on whether our politicians were at all responsible for this happening and here's more from his column from just before this decision was made -- Five thoughts on the potential S&P downgrade:

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