Whose fault is it?

Philadelphia Inquirer: Forget women scorned. To truly experience hell’s furies, watch a politician in search of a scapegoat when the cameras are rolling.

So learned Goldman Sachs executives past and present as they had their reputations and assets kicked — finally, bipartisanship! — by members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations.

Not that there’s any sympathy for Goldman Sachs. Its role in the financial shenanigans of the last decade is justifiably under scrutiny. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil suit over deals tied to subprime mortgages, and Thursday the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation.

With all that federal firepower lining up, why hold the Senate hearings? Maybe the senators wanted to show they were on top of things. But that notion was easily dispelled in the lengthy opening statement last week by committee chair Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Contributions

The senator was no doubt trying to stoke outrage at Goldman Sachs, which certainly played its part in the boom and bust — a part that included generous contributions to lawmakers of both parties over the years. Instead, Levin’s remarks and those of his colleagues, Republican and Democrat, left viewers with questions:

Where were you during all this? Or the Federal Reserve, which could have curtailed the lending binge?

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