We are left then, with an elite which is, bluntly, so divorced from the reality of their actions as to be suspect in all of those actions. We are left, then, with the more troubling problem that removing Judith Miller is inconsequential - swatting at one fly out of millions.
Instead, we must realize that there is a basic ethical collapse at the top of our system, that the very contempt that they hold the public in is the source of the problem. The "Consumer Society" - where the masses are herded this way and that by the elites - is at an end, simply because it can no longer make decisions, pay its bills, or tell reality from unreality.
In order to deal with threats, we must understand their proportionality. It is the requirement imposed even on ordinary citizens - to respond with force proportional to the threat.
The essence of public judgement is the ability to manage problems, and prevent them from becoming situations - gradually contaning and removing the source of the problem.
It is clear that judgment is a quality which we no longer have in our public life - where Clinton was allowed to be railroaded into an embarassing position, and then strung up by - the New York Times among others - even as Islamic radicals grew in strength. The "unlimited political war" which the Republicans were allowed to wage struck deeply at the heart of our ability to manage and govern our own affairs.
We must, then, have a basic restoration of judgement before we can procede in any other way, and the metric will be the fall from grace of those who have failed to display judgement themselves.
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