Ebola: Another sign of our capital's decay?

Beyond the immediate danger posed by Ebola, what the situation has exposed should not go unremarked.

Because, to the list of institutions once held in high regard but which have lately come up short -- the Veterans Administration, the IRS, yes, even the Secret Service -- we now must add the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's been an all-too-familiar story: first, the calm assurances that all is well; then the impenetrable press releases saying nothing; finally the grudging admission, "Mistakes were made."

The administration seemed as caught off-guard as the rest of us, and scrambled to catch up.

Congress, which has done nothing for years, literally, and can't even break the partisan deadlock long enough to confirm a Surgeon General, played to form -- they launched into a bitter blame game.

All this as the chairman of the Federal Reserve expressed concern the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer, which could mean new problems on the economic front.

I don't know where all this goes. What I do know is that our once-proud "shining city on a hill" is becoming just a town where nothing works.

Once we figure out what to do about Ebola, maybe we should focus on what to do about that.