It’s late at night and you’re driving down the 101.

You had a few drinks before getting behind the wheel and the odometer isn’t much concern — 80 mph … 90 mph … whatever.

When you finally look up from the text message you were composing during your reckless lane change, you see the flashing red and blue lights pop up in your rear view.

You’re screwed if you don’t have something up your sleeve.

Fortunately, you remember what you heard on the radio during your commute home earlier in the evening, and as the officer approaches your vehicle, you decide to give it a try.

“Good evening, officer. I’m sorry about my behavior, but there is a perfectly logical explanation for this.”

The officer bites, so you continue.

“Well, you see, it’s President Obama. It’s his fault. He has broken my spirit. His government is taking over and running America into the ground. So, I just figured ‘What the hell?’”

Will that defense work for you? Well, it seems unlikely to me, but maybe if you rely on Rush Limbaugh’s advice, you would expect to hear a different answer.

On his radio program last Thursday, Limbaugh unbelievably blamed Obama for the extramarital affair of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, claiming that Obama has “killed spirit” in America and, as Sanford personified, have been led them to give up, throw caution to the wind and just “enjoy life.”

But despite my liberal leanings, my biggest problem with Limbaugh’s comments resides far outside the political realm.

I am willing ignore the fact that Limbaugh calls out Obama, who has been in office for about five months, for Sanford’s affair, which started more than one year ago. I can somehow ignore the insinuation of “family values” man Limbaugh that cheating on one’s wife qualifies as enjoying life.

I am also willing to ignore the fact that even if Obama were as oppressive as Limbaugh suggests, that would still have nothing to do with a man and woman consciously making a conscious foray into infidelity.

What I am not willing to ignore is the way Limbaugh skirts the two words that have become the most frightening combo in America since Ike and Tina Turner. That, of course, is a little something called “personal responsibility.”

We teach our kids to avoid taking personal responsibility from an early age (“Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” … “Not me.”), and a look back at just the past few years shows that the concept of “my bad” has been dealt a decisive blow in every issue of public interest over the past many years.

Who or what is to blame for the recession? It’s hard to say when every potential guilty party has had their finger of blame pointing elsewhere since the trouble began.

Who has steered us around a couple wrong turns in Washington, D.C. over the past few decades? The Republicans always say the Democrats, the Democrats always say the Republicans.

Who will be blamed for the nice big flameout? My bets are on the last person to say “not it.”

It’s aggravating. A simple “mea culpa” would be nice to hear every once in a while. As a nation, we have allowed ourselves to get to a point where “Sorry, my mistake” is seemingly no longer virtuous.

Sure, scapegoating is fun and easy — much easier than looking oneself in the mirror at least. But what does it accomplish? Absolutely nothing toward the greater good.

And that’s clear in the Sanford issue. We very clearly have a man on our hands who is deeply embroiled in personal conflict.

What he did was pitiful and the blame can be pinned nowhere else but his shoulders. And though he refuses to resign, we can at least be glad to see a man trying to confront his demons head on, admitting the fault is solely his own. I won’t call it admirable, but I will call it a step in the right direction.

But then we get someone with the wide influence and listenership of Limbaugh extolling the virtues of victimology at the cost of baseless political maneuvering and that’s all it takes to send us back in the wrong direction.

We need people like Limbaugh to stop perpetuating the notion that someone else is always to blame for our shortcomings. We need a return to a mindset where someone taking personal responsibility for his or her actions is not only the right thing to do, but is, in fact, the only thing to do.

Reach Ben at bberkley@asu.edu