Europeans blaming rating agencies, not leftist government, for debt debacle in Greece

The one good thing about witch hunts is that they occasionally catch guilty people. In the trans-Atlantic war on prosperity, governments have finally settled on a common enemy: the investment rating agencies that have been downgrading government debt in Europe and the United States.

Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, says the agencies were "behind the curve and reinforced the curve." That sounds a little like grabbing yourself by the hair and holding yourself at arm's length, and it's typical of the illogical complaints being made by European leaders against Fitch and Standard & Poor's for their rapid downgrading of Greece's sovereign debt.

On this side of the pond, the Securities and Exchange Commission is putting pressure on Moody's, and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) is introducing regulation of rating agencies into the stalled finance bill.

Note that the rating agencies are not getting dinged in response to their legitimate failures -- the famously too-high ratings awarded to Enron, Lehman Brothers and the universe of junk debt instruments. They're being punished for doing the right thing: sounding the alarm on Europe's manifest sovereign debt crisis and America's looming one. By coincidence, Moody's recently issued a widely publicized warning that the U.S. could be looking at a serious public debt emergency by 2013. No wonder Franken wants to rein in the raters that were considered jim-dandy back when President Obama first introduced his financial regulation bill. The agencies have gotten themselves into trouble by trespassing on government property.