The Washington Post editorial board is just now realizing that the Republicans are the party of fiscal irresponsibility.
Paul Krugman rightly kicks some assnecks here.
Why the blindness? I suspect a lot of it had to do with the desire to seem balanced. Journalists felt that they had to find Republican fiscal heroes, just to show how even-handed and open-minded they were. To say that the whole deficit thing was a political ploy, with no substance behind it, sounded shrill.
It's not like the numbers are mysterious. George W. Bush spiked the debt by 20% -- more than any president since Truman. For additional reading on which party is responsible for the biggest spikes in the national debt, go look at this.