In defense of finger-pointing

There have been lots of calls, post-Coakley, to avoid "finger-pointing" and "circular firing squads." The underlying premise is that recriminations are unhelpful. Really? I'm not sure a healthy dose of recrimination isn't just what the Democratic doctor ordered. How can we cure what ails us unless we examine how we got into this mess in the first place? We need to know if Coakley's loss was simply a one-time anomaly brought on by a bad candidate, or a sign of something much worse and widespread. You simply can't fix a problem until you define what the problem is. I think a healthy dose of finger-pointing might do us some good right about now. The only uncertainty is what we do or don't choose to learn from the experience.