The issue is not “blame”, it is “accountability”. Liberals and conservatives come from totally different universes on this concept.
Several times in my career I was hired into positions where the company was not doing well. My job was to change that. If I didn’t, they would find someone else to. In my exit interview I could wail that conditions outside my control made it very difficult for me to accomplish the goal. I might even get some sympathy for that, but it’s irrelevant. The goal was not met. As Clint Eastwood said last night, when someone isn’t getting the job done, you have to let him go. That is the conservative view. That is the “ownership” view.
But witness the liberal view. Nowhere is this more evident than in our K-12 educational system. You can’t fire a teacher simply because he’s not getting the children educated. You have to prove that he is materially culpable — an utter incompetent, maybe a sex offender. It wouldn’t be “fair” to fire the teacher or the principal. It’s not his fault. You can’t BLAME him.
Cut to the macro economic consequences. We are living the economic results of that liberal attitude. We are rushing headlong toward a European style economy where performance is secondary to “fairness”. Where accountability is subject to establishment of BLAME beyond a reasonable doubt. Is that what we really want? Are we going to hold the President of the United States accountable for results? Or are we going to say it’s not fair to blame him for circumstances beyond his control?