This is a well-known psychological bias, though I forget the name of it.<p>Blaming external factors on your failure, but blaming internal characteristics on the failures of others -- conservatives seem to be guilty of this more often than others, but everyone does it to some extent.
The bottom of the page had this link to a previous column by Gross, which I also... "enjoyed".<p>"I See Dead Bankers! Wall Street has become The Sixth Sense filled with corpses who think they're still alive."
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2209893/" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/id/2209893/</a>