Former Wash. Post Reporter: Blame Everyone Except Borrowers for Mortgage Mess

How does a former reporter for The Washington Post score a 2,200-word column on the mortgage mess in her former publication? Never mention personal responsibility.

Kathleen Day took blame to a new level June 1 when she failed to mention personal responsibility even one time in her lengthy column. Day, now a spokeswoman for the left-wing Center for Responsible Lending, was a financial reporter for the Post until mid-2007.

Day blamed just about everyone else - from Wall Street to banks to brokers, to the White House, to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to Congress to credit-rating agencies - for the problems in the housing market. But she never hinted that borrowers might share some blame.

In fact, Day stood up for borrowers who got in over their heads, claiming lenders "aggressively coaxed millions of borrowers to take out unaffordable mortgages," as if borrowers didn't know their financial situations and didn't have an opportunity to read mortgage documents before signing them.

You might think somebody - anybody - at the Post would have noticed the failure to mention personality responsibility in the epic column and venture to suggest she might at least throw the concept a bone.