blame game

noun

the blame game : a situation in which different individuals or groups attempt to assign blame to each other for some problem or failure

… yet another example of the blame game that has become endemic in American life. It's always someone else's fault, and government makes an easy and familiar target.

—Zachary Karabell, Time, 18 Oct. 2010

Anyone who has watched the … congressional hearings on the government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina has witnessed officials high and low playing the blame game.

—BusinessWeek, 10 Oct. 2005

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above

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