Why S&P Looks Silly

I'm really pretty stunned by the S&P downgrade.  I know they had threatened it but I didn't really understand why.  Reading through their report, I get three potential reasons for the downgrade.

1.  The reduction in debt wasn't big enough ($2.1 trillion instead of $4.0 trillion).

2.  The process was ugly (right up to the wire, etc., etc.)

3.  The Republicans are intransigent on taxes and the Democrats are intransigent on entitlements.

Let me take these one at a time in an effort to show that there's really nothing new here