On His Watch

The U.S. Navy has a fine old tradition that we should apply in the current economic meltdown and debt downgrade. Whatever goes wrong on a Navy ship is the responsibility of the captain of the ship; as they say, "it happened on his watch."

The captain doesn't get to blame a snafu on insubordinate or underperforming shipmates. The buck stops with the captain.

The White House is trying to blame either Standard & Poor's or the Tea Party for the debt downgrade and subsequent stock market nosedive. That's nonsense; it happened on "Captain" Obama's watch and he must take the blame.