It's tempting for most people to blame Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang for the company's recent stumbles, particularly his hard-nosed rejection (twice) of Microsoft's rather generous $47.5 billion buyout offer—especially now that Yahoo's stock is in a death spiral. But as Kara Swisher writes on AllThingsD, maybe the blame isn't so clear-cut.

"Because, to my mind, if there is anyone to cast stones at in the ongoing crisis at Yahoo, BoomTown would have to toss a large boulder in the direction of the company's incredibly shrinking board," Swisher writes, since they're the ones who are charged with keeping Yahoo on track. "That's why their apparent stasis is just astonishing, if it were not quite so appalling."

Another large investor, who remains anonymous, said in the story: "With all the other things going on in the economy, I have just decided to move on and write Yahoo off... but the lack of action by the board is really hard to understand."

Swisher said that Microsoft CEO Ballmer may still be interested in a deal, "but sources at Microsoft tell me that Ballmer has said recently that he has no idea who to work with at the company to get anything done and that Yahoo—especially its board, since his relations with Yang have not been successful—has to be the one to act first."