Off the Stage

 They’re shuffling off the stage.  Finally.  CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley announced within weeks of each other that they are leaving their posts soon.  It couldn’t come soon enough.   Both of these people that rose to high rankings represent the worst of American leadership since Aaron Burr. Together, they did enormous damage to the Republic.  It is not hyperbolic to suggest that they should both be in prison for their actions.

Rochelle Walensky
Rochelle Walensky took over for Robert Redfield in January of 2021- about a year into the pandemic.  An early advocate of the vaccines, she falsely claimed that if you took the jab, you wouldn’t get it and couldn’t transmit the virus.  Playing fast and loose with data, she failed to distinguish deaths caused by COVID and deaths with COVID.  Caving to pressure from teachers unions, Walensky advocated school shutdowns as well. 

One of my first impressions of Walensky came in March of 2021, as she addressed the nation in a halting voice, barely holding back tears,

“I’m going to pause here. I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring  feeling of impending doom.  We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential where we are, and so much reason for hope.  But right now, I’m scared.”

My immediate reaction was, “What kind of leadership is that?”

What followed throughout her tenure was data distortion, flat out lies about the efficacy of the jab and policy recommendations that de facto had the weight of law that inflicted devastation on our business community, our education system, the military, and the mental health of tens of millions of Americans. We still don’t have a good number reflecting how many individuals died from COVID, rather than with COVID.

Most notoriously, Walensky asserted that vaccinated individuals could not transmit the virus, and that was patently untrue.  Her CDC advocated vaccinations for children and healthy young people while ignoring the evidence that myocarditis resulting from the vaccine was more of a risk for young men than the virus. 

Walensky will never be held accountable for her lies, distortions and bad calls.  The damage she inflicted on our society will linger for generations.

Mark Milley
While Rochelle Walensky inflicted incredible harm to our society, particularly our youth, Mark Milley damaged our standing in the world, emboldened our enemies, and, in an act of treason, upended the chain of command.   Like Walensky, he will never be held accountable.  Our enemies are now laughing at us. 

Milley jumped into the political fray in 2020 when he accompanied President Trump to the burned out St. John’s church after mobs nearly stormed the White House, then issued a statement saying that he regretted it, and should not have been there.  His caving to political pressure was the first sign that all is not well with the military top brass.

The most egregious blunder was his admission that he had placed a call to his Chinese counterpart to tell him that he would give him a heads up if Trump ordered an attack because the Chinese were worried about a U.S. attack.  He also blocked Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons.   In our system of government, those are not Milley’s calls to make. His job is not to de-escalate with the Chinese.  His job is to serve the commander in chief.   No one elected him.   Subverting the chain of command is a treasonous offense, plain and simple.  In an earlier era, Milley would have faced a firing squad instead of a fat pension.

His statements about “white rage,” permitting drag queens to perform on military bases, and his halt of operations so that the military could purge “extremists” belied a top brass more interested in being Woke than defending the nation.

Milley’s judgment was borne out by his results.  He said he was surprised that the Afghan army folded so quickly.  Well, Mr. Milley, we pay you not to get surprised by military developments.  That is a vital aspect of the job.  Of course, there is the matter of leaving billions worth of equipment on the ground to be picked up and used by the Taliban and bartered in the international arms trade. His second mistake in judgment was assuming that Kiev would fold in a matter of weeks.  Here we are, over a year later and the Ukrainians have held off Putin’s forces so far.

Permitting the Chinese spy balloon to traverse the U.S. skies unharassed, collecting sensitive military data was his last most pusillanimous act.  American citizens were nonplussed as reports came in and people actually saw it, and the military did nothing until it had completed its mission and was over the Atlantic. Of course, the administration offered a variety of excuses for its inaction but the fact remains that neither China or Russia would have permitted this over their territory.

The consequences of the Afghanistan withdrawal and Chinese spy balloon debacles will take a generation to remediate, if they ever can be, thanks to Milley.   But Milley will suffer no adverse consequences from the harm he has caused.

When history is written, historians will undoubtedly record these two, along with the notorious Anthony Fauci, as the three actors that did the most damage to the American experiment.   And if America does indeed crumble, they will be seen as some of the major architects of its demise.