Of course, squabbling over Alan Greenspan’s place in history is not going to get us out of this crisis. But vigorous debate about the past is absolutely essential if we are to avoid such a quagmire in the future.
But this is not how things work in the accountability free zone known as the Village. It's just a waste of time to look back and figure out what went wrong. Instead, we must turn to the people who screwed everything up and get their advice about how to fix things while studiously writing out of the picture anyone who was smart enough recognize the inevitable problems.