John McCain would have remembered it, he lived it.

Oh the things you learn.

You hear a perfect record cited over and over in the debt limit debate: The United States has never defaulted. Better put an asterisk by that. America has briefly stiffed some of its creditors on at least two occasions.

One was in 1979 because of a technical glitch, quick rectified under "History's Greatest Monster", Jimmy Carter. The other...during the War of 1812, or as Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz know it, "the time Roosevelt let the Germans burn down a white house at Pearl Harbor"

Once, the young nation had a dramatic excuse: The Treasury was empty, the White House and Capitol were charred ruins, even the troops fighting the War of 1812 weren't getting paid...

Undoubtedly, this seems like a capital idea for reenacting by the modern Tea Party.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]