Apologists for President Obama try to shift the blame for the nation’s credit downgrade by using the term “Tea Party Downgrade,” absurdly suggesting that patriotic Americans who pushed spending discipline somehow spooked ratings officials at Standard & Poor’s.

But did Tea Party activists squander trillions on misguided stimulus and Obamacare, or impose paralyzing Dodd-Frank regulations? Was it conservatives who enjoyed two years of single-party Congressional control but did nothing to slow exploding deficits, or even to raise the debt ceiling? Tom from Glendora, California, a regular caller to my radio show, offered a fine analogy: “Blaming the Tea Party for the downgrade is like blaming Paul Revere for the Revolutionary War.”

Revere, like Tea Party supporters, just warned citizens of looming catastrophe. In 1775, Minutemen responded immediately but, unfortunately, the Obama administration ignored warnings and took no action to protect the economy.