Why do I feel that comment about "balance" is not the compliment it would at first glance seem to be?

Fair enough about the sack of Constantinople ranking in the top ten acts of barbarism in world history, as a whole, but then considering that the Venetians for their part were quite selective and civilized in their looting, I'm not sure they should carry all of the blame. It doesn't seem very likely to me that they intended for such mass destruction to occur, nor can you use the argument (as in many other cases of city lootings getting out of hand) that they were nominally in charge of the looters and as such responsible for their actions.

It seems to me Venice has for centuries grown its wealth, power and influence through the same combination of pragmatism and brilliant opportunism that led them to do what they did in 1204 - as tragic as the consequences of that action were, I'm inclined to see it more as a blunder than as an act of unusual malice or perfidy. Certainly it doesn't seem quite as bad as, say, the capture of Jerusalem a century earlier. Even if perhaps in the long run its consequences were greater.