Perhaps those focus groups being used by the Obama reelection campaign have mentioned to his campaign team that blaming others for your own failures does not sit well with most voters.

CBS News:

Vice President Joe Biden said in a live interview with Miami public radio station WLRN Thursday that the Obama administration - not the Bush administration - now has ownership of the struggling U.S. economy.

Biden said Americans have "good reason to be upset" because they lost jobs because of the recession, "something they didn't have a thing to do with creating."

"Even though 50-some percent of the American people think the economy tanked because of the last administration, that's not relevant," said the vice president. "What's relevant is we're in charge."

The economic recession began during the final year of the Bush administration, and polls show many Americans continue to blame Mr. Bush - not his successor - for the current economic situation. A CBS News/New York Times poll over the summer found that 26 percent of Americans mostly blame the Bush administration for the state of the economy, while just 8 percent blame the Obama administration.

"Right now, we are the ones in charge, and it's gotten better but it hasn't gotten good enough," Biden told WLRN. "...I don't blame them for being mad. We're in charge. So they're angry."

CBS is a little out of date on its polling data. That poll "over the summer" (Note to CBS: It is now fall) has been superceded by a poll that came out recently showing a majority blame Obama for the bad economy.

Is this a case of Biden's mouth getting him in trouble again? Probably. Despite what the polls are saying, it is a convenient fiction for the Obama administration to maintain innocence when it comes to the bad economy. If they are going to take full ownership, it won't be until there are signs that the economy is turning around, not moving into a double dip recession.