Is that a Tear Rolling Down Alexander Hamilton's Cheek?

Alexander Hamilton was a pesky immigrant who saw Great Britain's creditworthiness and thus ability to borrow as important to its standing as a superpower as was the British navy.  As the republic's first Secretary of the Treasury, he set the U.S. on course to creating the dollar as the world currency built on the credit worthiness of U.S. treasury bonds.

Pity Mr. Geithner who fate it is to have Hamilton's job when we suffer the indignity of a credit downgrade.  Standard and Poor's announced after markets closed Friday that America's bonds have fallen from AAA to AA.

The announcement brought quick reactions.

Guess who said the following?

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone...
A little self-discipline would not be too uncomfortable for the United States, the world's largest economy and issuer of international reserve currency, to bear.

"For centuries, it was the exuberant energy and innovation that has sustained America's role in the world and maintained investors' confidence in dollar assets. But now, mounting debts and ridiculous political wrestling in Washington have damaged America's image abroad...
All Americans, both beltway politicians and those on Main Street, have to do some serious soul-searching to bring their country back from a potential financial abyss."

(A) A big bond investor
(B) A foreign upstart
(C) A news service
(D) All of the above
(E) None of the above

The correct answer is (D).  Saturday, in the wake of the downgrade,  Xinhua, China's official news service editorialized the words you just read.  The signed editorial was attributed to Yamei Wang.  It is embarrassing to be lectured by China especially when China is calling a spade a spade.