The Lost Principle of Accountability

An excellent article, much after my own taste: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/opinion/24ricks.html   I especially liked the comparison of the private and the general. This is a pervasive and hugely destructive problem in our society at large. Leaders are simply not held to account for their failures. We see this in the Gulf oil spill, we saw it in the financial crisis, we see it perpetually among the management of unsuccesful publicly held companies. This is what America has lost in the last 50 years and what will ultimately destroy it if not recovered: the interlocking values of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and accountability.