A leader in denial - Cowen is now part of the problem

ED TOM BELL, the character played by Tommy Lee Jones in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, has a throwaway line that more or less captures our situation.

When he and his deputy Wendell discover a dozen or so bullet-ridden Mexicans, the result of a drugs war skirmish in desert back country, Wendell describes the scene.

“It’s a mess, ain’t it, Sheriff?”