One more thing on the comments to my who should we blame post:

Man, do a lot of you want to just blame President Bush and be done with it.

Now, I know I'm just asking for a lot more angry letters and comments, but here goes ...

 

Of course President Bush bears some responsibility.

There has been, to put it mildly, subpar regulatory oversight in many cases.

The combination of the tax cut and increased spending certainly hurt an already out-of-balance global economy.

The Administration, like almost everyone else, failed to catch the extent of the crisis and warn against it.

But, according to our reporting, this crisis was the result of massive historic and macroeconomic shifts in the global financial system.

It was a combination of factors in which the key players are China, Europe, Japan, the U.S. government, the U.S. consumer, and many U.S. and global banks.

What I find most fascinating is that I don't see any one clear devil causing the crisis. I see a network of people and institutions making self-serving decisions that combined to lead to this incredibly strange crisis.

I think it must be satisfying to have a simpler narrative—there's one bad man who caused it all through stupidity or greed or both. But I don't see that. And, for all the people who posted comments asking us to focus our blame on Pres. Bush, I don't see anyone making a compelling case. (Frankly, most don't make any kind of case at all.)

The last thing I want to do is defend President Bush's management of this crisis. That's not what I'm trying to do.

All I'm trying to do, in this post and in earlier ones, is just make a point. I think it's a simple and obvious one: this was the result of many huge, complex, global interactions. No one person is to blame. And if one person is to blame, it's not Pres. Bush (sorry, Greenspan).

I know some of you will write angry comments. That is, of course, totally fine. Just please, please, please do one thing: Make a case. Give evidence and an argument. So we can actually discuss issues and facts and the kinds of things that fuel good conversations.

Those of you who do point out flaws in my logic, errors in judgment, mistakes of fact or who make a counter argument: Thank you. That helps me. Sometimes it stings a bit. Sometimes I feel really embarrassed that I wrote or said something stupid. But it's good, really good. I think it helps us all.