Obama: "This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle"

Exactly.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession because of forces beyond our control," Obama told a town hall forum in Austin. "This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership in Washington — a Washington where George Bush hands out billions of tax cuts to the wealthiest few for eight long years, and John McCain promises to make those same tax cuts permanent, embracing the central principle of the Bush economic program."

In remarks Obama aides suggested were a rebuke to McCain as well as Bush, Obama said more is needed than just "to change faces in the White House," but that the country "needs a change of leadership."