The temptation to cheer the federal government's lawsuit against
Standard & Poor's for the AAA- ratings it slapped on securities
that promptly blew up is understandable. S&P and other debt
raters played a central role in the financial crisis of 2008 and
for too long no one has managed to hold them accountable.  But
it's also too bad the U.S. Justice Department didn't find a way
to take on the legal defense that's at the heart of the ratings
business: S&P, Moody's and Fitch rely on the First Amendment to
assert that their evaluations of debt securities are the
equivalent of opinions, and thus constitutionally protected.
The government's lawsuit accuses S&P of falsely telling
investors its ratings were accurate, independent and free of
bias. Rather than deal with the First Amendment issue, the
Justice Department invoked a law, adopted at the height of the
savings and loan crisis in 1989, that targets fraud in cases
involving federally insured financial institutions backed by
taxpayers.  There are some bizarre