Regarding our institutional elites, a good discrediting is long overdue. As with ordinary Americans, they should feel the pain of their mistakes. Regarding Afghanistan, generals such as Petraeus, Mattis, McChrystal, and Milley (especially Milley) should be at the top of the list.
So are the media that hide and downplay incompetence.
I imagine that the following scenario could happen a couple of months from now, or sooner: Biden enters an ice cream parlor, with the fawning White House press corps in tow. Peppered with their questions (“How much do you blame Donald Trump for the chaos in Afghanistan?”, “Should the vaccine-hesitant be imprisoned?”, “When will the Capitol Hill insurgents be prosecuted?”), he walks up to the counter, where he is greeted by a smiling waitress. “I’ll have . . .” he stammers. Then he pulls a note card from his pocket, reads it and says, “A large vanilla cone.” The reporters rush to scribble their reports of the event, each with a headline equivalent to “Vanilla Is Still Biden’s Favorite.”
