How do we account for the fact that the pundits and media outlets who have been wrong about everything are still considered reliably "mainstream" – and still get to determine the parameters of allowable debate?

Let's take the most egregious case imaginable – Bill Kristol. Here is someone who has been wrong about absolutely everything for as long as anyone can remember. On the foreign policy front, he wasn't just on the wrong side of the barricades, he was wrong about the outcomes of our disastrous interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Iraq would be a "two month" war, and in Afghanistan we would be welcomed as "liberators" (just like in Iraq!). "If we prevail in Libya," he averred, "the victory will be America's." We did indeed succeed in overthrowing Gaddafi: and shortly afterwards, a US ambassador was dead and terrorists were cavorting in the swimming pool of our former embassy.