Germany's Parliament voted today to approve a $185 billion contribution to $1 trillion bailout plan designed to calm the debt crisis sweeping through euro-zone states. Many analysts doubt that the emergency fund will help troubled countries like Greece avoid defaulting on their debt. But the fund could buy time for Greece to manage an "orderly restructuring," whereby it would agree to pay current boldholders a certain fraction of the promised loans. (Read an explainer of the Greek debt crisis here).

The bailout is horribly unpopular in Germany. But that's a little ironic, because it's ultimately designed to save not only Greece and Portugal, but also the entire European Union. It's essentially a bailout for the euro. And no European country benefits from the euro's regime more than Germany.

The common take on Europe's mess is that Greece's debt crisis might be Europe's problem, but surely it's Greece's fault. The EU didn't force Greek tax evaders to be evasive. It didn't force the government to regularly spend 50% of GDP while it collected a little more than a third of domestic product in taxes. The country got drunk on its own red ink. It made its own hangover, right?

Well, Steven Pearlstein spins things differently. The problem isn't just the profligate peripheral states like Portugal, Italy and Greece. The problem is at the heart of Europe, both metaphorically and geographically speaking. The problem is Germany.