Congratulations, my fellow Americans.

You are again making me deeply ashamed of our cluelessness. First, for feeling the need to blame someone for every ill in the world. And second, for being to lazy to try to figure out who to blame.

We're short on flu vaccines. How horrible. Well, you're blaming everything in the world on the current president, why not do blame him for this one too? I mean, that would be so much more convenient than, oh, thinking or asking questions.

Why are we short of flu vaccines? Because a British company which makes about half of the ones we use now just went under.

Clearly Karl Rove must have been involved somehow.

Well, how did we get in the situation where only 2-3 companies make our flu vaccines?

Well, if I recall correctly, a lot of us thought it was a wonderful idea when the Clinton administration, in the 90s, decided that children -- even those with perfectly well-off parents -- should get their flu vaccinations for free from the federal government.

And that it was a great idea if the government paid only about 2/3rd the market price for these.

And where were you when they raised the regulatory burdens on vaccine producers and drove many from the marketplace?

And where were you when they decided to ban thimerosal, which was important to the distribution process?

And, of course, every time we sat on a jury and saw a sick child or disabled and a big pharmaceutical company, we decided it was certainly worth it to give lots and lots of money away to help that poor child.

Forgetting, of course, that someday many more children would DIE because of such lawsuits.

Drug companies just looked at this and said: Who needs it? and went out of business or found other less risky things to do.

Given how stupid we are, we're lucky we even have one or two left today, considering what we've done to them: We've done everything possible to make sure that they won't consider bringing new products to market.

You know, imagine I told you to pick apples from trees for a reasonable wage. Now imagine I made the trees ten times as tall, cut yours salary by a third, and told you you would be severely beaten if I found a worm in any of the apples.

You'd get out of the business, too.

We all stood mute while these things were done, mostly under the Clinton administration. We can blame Clinton.

Or we can look in the mirror, because most the people on those juries were just like us, and we wouldn't have done any better. And we didn't take the time to think about long-term consequences of these "free gifts" Clinton gave away, and do what we could to oppose them.

And write to our congressmen begging them not to raise the regulatory burdens on drug companies.

But no, all that's a bit too difficult, and would force us to take a bit of responsibility and educate ourselves. Or at least shut up, knowing that we didn't take action when we could have.

So go ahead: Blame Bush.

Hypocrite.