If a lone individual had caused this.

[Paladin]

My wife and I are both retirees, and for the last few days our guts have been in knots, fretting over the possibility of our Social Security checks not showing up next month, scared that our retirement assets, put aside during forty years of hard work, might be wiped out in a world-wide economic collapse, all due to the political terrorism of Tea Party Republicans. It occurs to me that, if an individual had caused that level of anxiety, I would have sought that individual out, and as old and infirm and non-confrontational as I am, I would have done my best to beat the living shit out of that person. I'm in no mood to forgive or forget what the Tea Party has put us though, not now or ever.

[procon]

1. If a hostile foreign country had caused this...

I suspect we would have gone to war. We are prepared for outside threats to our national security, but who could have imagined that we'd need to fend off attacks from home grown seditionists intent of destroying the country from the inside?

I'm in the same boat as you, Paladin. Knowing that these same idiots are plotting to repeat this stunt again in 90 days, gives me no peace.

[Paladin]

2. Excellent point about the hostile foreign country.

Why should al Quaeda expend its efforts to bring us down, when our own elected representatives are doing such a horrifyingly good job at it?

[HereSince1628]

3. We'd be upset with a hacking vulnerability in a government database,

Now we know that the debt ceiling law to limit spending in WWI contains a trojan intended to destroy the federal gov't.

Considering how the US rushed the emergence of the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act after 9/11,

You'd think the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security would be all over such malicious use of a piece of legal code.