George Rebane
The extraordinarily incompetent Obama administration is not done with us yet. We pray that it is only incompetency that has created the current trail of disastrous public policies to vex and punish us – it could be something much more sinister as some commentators have argued, and about which even RR has murmured. Without recounting the laundry list (already much counted on these pages) we now witness the daily progress of our government attempting to deal with the Ebola epidemic which has also touched our shores.
It is finally clear to all that the CDC did absolutely nothing since last spring to prepare America for the inevitable arrival of contagious Ebola carriers, save issuing self-congratulatory assessments of how prepared they already were with their business-as-usual prophylaxes against infectious diseases. When Mr Duncan got on the plane to come to the US, there was nothing in place to stop this Ebola carrier that would have passed muster with an intelligent layman, but the protocols satisfied our tax-funded public health experts.
Can you imagine watching that dreaded disease lay waste to three west African countries for months, receiving a constant stream of information and data about the characteristics and progress of the disease, and then responding with an airport questionnaire as the country’s first line of defense? It was not a military secret that during the first week or so of Ebola’s 21 day incubation period the patient is asymptomatic – no temperature, no bad gut rumbles, no nothing. And then asking someone with no symptoms who has paid good money to land in the US whether they have been exposed to Ebola is literally beyond butt stupid.
Mr Duncan got in, the disease progressed, it was not detected even after having a 103+ fever and declaring his recent country of origin, he was finally admitted and then died. In the process at least two of his attending nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas were infected and contracted the disease, but not before other embarrassing and possibly tragic missteps. One of the women, trained in patient care and aware of the deficiencies in her protective suit, was cleared by the CDC to board an airplane, and on her own recognizance and took a trip of convenience. What the hell is going on?
Meanwhile CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden made the rounds of news and pundit shows and appeared as equally clueless about the Ebola preparedness of the nation’s hospitals and spouted the most sanguine pabulum possible to all of us out there in television land. The only thing that was clear to those who pay attention is that he and Ms Susan Rice were graduates of the same school of administration-compliant public relations. The questions asked of Dr Frieden and even President Obama have been so off the mark (I am ashamed of Fox News, the lamestream I understand) that one wonders what has happened to those sharp questions that investigative reporters asked in days of yore.
Circling the barn on how the government is protecting America from an uncontrolled Ebola outbreak, we received no answers save that really effective procedures were in place, everybody in the government agencies was real smart and working very hard, and that we had nothing to worry about. No one asked the Question Primo, ‘Would the procedures now in place have stopped Mr Duncan from entering the country?’ Astoundingly, the answer would have been NO, and more astoundingly it is still NO. Adding a thermometer to our first and only line of defense to check arrivees is not sufficient – Mr Duncan had no temperature and felt fine when he got off the plane. Multiple physicians and medical experts have now publicly testified to that major shortcoming.
Today we’ve doubled down on stupid is as stupid does by debating whether we need to do something to prohibit people from the Ebola hot zone from having ready access to America’s population centers and hinterlands. Thoughtful public figures have publicly shaken their heads in misbelief at the administration’s spokespeople who, with straight faces, argue that denying such entry into the US would speed up the spread of Ebola worldwide – what?!
The same duufuses confuse stopping commercial flights to the hot zone with preventing people from the hot zone having a free pass out of an US airport after they land. The president himself gave the most conclusive testimony to his assessment of the inability of his constituents to follow a flawed argument. From his last Saturday’s broadcast –
Finally, we can’t just cut ourselves off from West Africa, where this disease is raging. Our medical experts tell us that the best way to stop this disease is to stop it at its source-before it spreads even wider and becomes even more difficult to contain. Trying to seal off an entire region of the world-if that were even possible-could actually make the situation worse. It would make it harder to move health workers and supplies back and forth. Experience shows that it could also cause people in the affected region to change their travel, to evade screening, and make the disease even harder to track.
Stopping commercial passengers from West Africa at US airports is “cutting ourselves off”?!! Most certainly the countries neighboring the hot zone have already cut themselves off, but America has uncounted charter and military flights now going into the region with supplies, medical workers, and troops building healthcare infrastructure. Stopping about a 150 West Africans a day from that area is “cutting ourselves off” – horse pucky! And then without a blink he equates such a policy to “Trying to seal off an entire region of the world …” – no one else would mistake actions at US airports with sealing off West Africa. And then to state with certainty that stopping commercial flights (by the two remaining airlines) into the hot zone would “make the situation worse” by making “it harder to move health workers and supplies back and forth” is utter bullshit. The disease is being fought with chartered and military flights that overwhelm the number of scheduled commercial flights by two second rate airlines, one Belgian, one Moroccan. If there’s a problem, add more charter and military flights.
The bottom line here is that Obama is clearly talking to people with the mental acumen of those who voted for him (twice!). And therein lies the reason to hire Ron Klain – a ‘political operative’ (aka hack) – as the administration’s new ‘Ebola czar’. Klain is a professional propagandist with no shred of public health experience. But that appointment says it all about the thesis of this piece – it has to be incompetence to think that messaging is America’s big problem with Ebola. Dr Scott Gottlieb MD (former FDA deputy commissioner) and Mr Tevi Troy (former deputy HHS secretary) have a lot to say about this in their ‘Ebola Isn’t a Messaging Problem’. There they make the case that –
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite a rocky beginning, now recognizes that containing Ebola presents unexpected challenges of technique and execution. The White House, for its part, apparently thinks it is a messaging problem.
In my experience I have found that bureaucracies – government, NGOs, commercial – start acting incompetently the bigger they get. And such incompetencies are greatly amplified if the bureaucracy is guided by collectivist thought to implement collectivist objectives. Then things really go off the rails – people die, huge sums are wasted, and liberties disappear. But bureaucracies are like cancers that seek at every turn to grow and metastasize. In human affairs such organizational structures have pruned themselves through the buildup of internal inefficiencies. The only way that big bureaucracies do survive is through the use of force – intrinsic or allied – that guarantees their continued life and ability to impose themselves on others.
Finally, I'd like to posit that there may be a definite change of the public's mood underway toward big government and its expensive overreach. The string of Obama's policy failures and extra-constitutional initiatives may finally be a wake up call for those Americans who are not terminally somnambulent. I call your attention to a recent Cato Institute research report on the topic – 'Public Attitudes toward Federalism – The Public's Preference for Renewed Federalism'.
[update] Hot flash, 'U.S. to Require Passengers From Ebola-Stricken Countries to Fly Into 5 Airports'. The public pressure for limited ingress from the hot zone has been growing for over two weeks during which time we heard the above quoted crap from the administration that such policies would "seal off an entire region" of Africa. Well, five is at least four too many, but against its better judgment Team Obama will now focus resources at five airports instead of fifty. One would be better, much better. Now who will be watching the west coast airports?
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