These accounts undermine the popular myth that Thain brilliantly sold the troubled Merrill to a healthy suitor. Sorry John, it was Fleming who pushed for the deal while you were weighing hookups with Morgan Stanley and your old firm, Goldman Sachs. But they also contradict the notion that Lewis was misled and then forced into buying Merrill by a lack of time to perform due diligence on Merrill's troubled assets or because of arm-twisting by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Lewis had a full year to think about Merrill, and the last time I looked, he didn't work for Bernanke or Paulson, but BofA shareholders.