Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: If you oppose raising the debt ceiling, you're just as bad as al Qaeda

Really, it’s what the former Treasury Secretary said in this interview.

“The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of Al-Qaeda terrorists. Really. They’re really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are looney, who would put our credit at risk.”

You know, national leaders saying idiotic things like this are why we can’t have a nice country. In Paul O’Neill’s world, debating whether or not to raise the debt ceiling — and perhaps at this point it’s appropriate to remind him that the current president voted against raising it in 2006 — are as bad as the people who did this:

As far as I’m concerned, with this remark the former Secretary of the Treasury has surrendered the right to be taken seriously by anyone, ever again.