Assigning blame in this Mainsail mess, the contrived investment fund now holding millions of Maine’s taxpayer dollars in stasis, is futility unparalleled. In America’s subprime mortgage meltdown and consequential credit crunch, there are villains lurking around every corner.

This week, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt blasted credit-rating agencies for downplaying danger. “There has been a loss of confidence in [their] ratings,” Levitt said, during a speech in Toronto. “No longer is a AAA rating enough.”

Apparently not. Despite Mainsail’s glowing ratings in early August, the fund collapsed with unprecedented speed, leaving Maine’s $20 million stake irretrievable, so far. The state blames its broker, Merrill Lynch, for leading it astray on Mainsail. The firm hints the state didn’t exercise due diligence.

Republicans, smelling Democratic blood in these churning fiscal waters, are calling for Treasurer David Lemoine’s head. Sen. Carol Weston, the party’s leader in the Legislature, is fomenting rage by condensing Mainsail into a matter of irresponsible Democrats dumping public money into scorched subprime earth.

It wasn’t that simple, as Weston knows and the public should. Wiser financial managers than Lemoine lost billions in this calamitous market; witness Abu Dhabi rescuing Citigroup, or bloodletting at firms like – surprise – Merrill Lynch. It’s a wonder Maine is hooked for only $20 million, or that only one investment during this time turned sour.

This isn’t a partisan issue. Neither Republican nor Democrats have a monopoly on financial insight.

Mainsail is about shared blame. On the broker, for presenting a tasty morsel that was actually rancid. On the treasurer, for swallowing without knowing all the ingredients. On the credit-rating agencies, as alleged by Levitt, for having unmerited optimism. On everybody who believed the boom time to be endless.

Thankfully, Maine’s money isn’t yet lost. Everyone knows where it is – frozen like leftovers inside a complicated, multinational fiasco. Maybe, Maine might receive 75 cents for every dollar sunken into Mainsail. The $20 million is now written off; whatever comes back now is windfall.

Instead of leveling blame, or making political waves, the focus should narrow on what Maine should learn from this disaster. Legitimate concerns about qualifications and partisanship in selection of treasurers have been raised, and deserve investigation. So do alterations to the state’s investment guidelines.

Anything further, such as the implementation of an investment advisory panel, as proposed by Sen. Peter Mills, is folly. The state cannot manage its portfolio by committee; nothing divides and inflames more than money. This responsibility is still best left with the treasurer.

Who, admittedly, got burned. Maine’s investments are now, as Lemoine says in a op-ed published today, in tasteless, shapeless, collapse-proof accounts, safe as Fort Knox. This is where it should stay, especially as second-guessers review the Mainsail saga with forensic intensity, searching for somebody to blame.

But this microscopic approach won’t reveal what they seek.

There’s way too much of it to go around.