For years, the President of the United States has told us that his single economic achievement has been the recovery of the stock market. In his state of the union address this year, President Obama told us, "Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. The economy is growing again."

So...there's that.

Then there's the real world, where the stock market has tumbled almost 2,000 points since July 21. President Obama has blamed, in order, the European economy, the "Arab Spring," the rise in oil prices and now, the Tea Party. On Tuesday, Obama explained that the problem was that Standard and Poor's, which downgraded America's debt from its normal triple-A rating, "doubted our political system's ability to act." Then Obama blustered, "No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country."  Click here to read more.