With Trump’s high-stakes Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin just two days away, it’s good to see that the president is in exactly the preparatory headspace you’d like to see: whining into the ether about how mean the press’s response is likely to be. Here he was just this morning:

Happy Wednesday.

Heroes and Monsters

by William Kristol

It’s sad but true: Contemptible men occupy the highest offices in our land.

Before becoming Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied repeatedly and vociferously about the coronavirus vaccine, calling it the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” and claiming it contained “poison.” During his presidential campaign that ended with his endorsement of Donald Trump in return for the promise of a cabinet position, Kennedy slandered those serving at the Centers for Disease Control, boasting, “As President, I will clean up the cesspool of corruption at CDC” and “I’ll hold responsible those who lied or concealed critical health information.”

Last Friday, an American who believed the lies spread by Kennedy and others, 32-year-old Patrick Joseph White, took five firearms to the CDC campus in Atlanta and fired some five hundred shots at the complex. Two hundred shots hit six buildings. Amazingly, no CDC employees were injured. But White killed a DeKalb County police officer who rushed to the scene, David Rose.

After waiting eighteen hours, Kennedy tepidly condemned this attack on his department. On Monday, he paid a brief and perfunctory condolence visit to the CDC. He immediately followed this visit by giving an interview in which he chose once again to reiterate his view that “the public health agencies have not been honest.”

The next day, a CDC employee, Jessica Rogers-Brown, wrote on a local Atlanta online news website about the situation she and her colleagues had been confronting, expressing

anger that for months, public servants like me have been painted as villains—called liars, conspirators, even criminals—for doing unglamorous, necessary work. Anger that repetition turns rumor into permission; that lies, said often enough and loud enough, chamber a round as surely as a hand on a trigger.

Ms. Rogers-Brown continued, “Moments like this demand unambiguous sentences from the highest office in the land: Public servants are not the enemy. Attacks on them are attacks on America. Say it plainly. Say it loudly. Say it now.”

President Trump has said not a word about this attack on federal public servants.

Nor has he offered condolences or praise for Officer Rose.

Rose was 33 years old. He was married with two children, and his wife is expecting their third child. He had served in Afghanistan as a Marine, and graduated from the policy academy in March. In a graduation speech for his academy class, Officer Rose said, “From the very first day, we learned that policing isn’t just about enforcing the law. It’s about protecting the vulnerable, standing for justice, and being the person who runs towards danger when others run away.”

For their whole lives, Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have run away not merely from danger (recall Trump’s bone spurs) but from responsibility and accountability. They have gotten away with contemptible behavior. They occupy high public office after living sordid lives of wealth and privilege. They have paid no price for their irresponsibility and cowardice.

The contrast with David Rose, Marine and police officer, who lived far too short a life of courage and public service, is striking.

One would like to think that David Rose represents the real and lasting America. One would like to think that Trump and Kennedy are sad historical aberrations whose current prominence and power we will one day—perhaps one day soon—look back on with horror and disgust.