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Damage Control: Obama Appoints an Ebola Czar
Things are becoming dire . . . not necessarily for those of us who fear that Ebola may spread to the US, but for Barack Obama and the Democrats. If things were not becoming really, really dire, the President would not have done what he just did — which is to appoint — drum roll, please — an “Ebola czar.”
That this is a-made-for television drama is clear from the most impressive fact about Ron Klain, the new Ebola czar. He knows nothing about medicine or epidemiology — nothing more, that is, than you or I know.
Here is the justification the President gave:
It may make sense for us to have one person … so that after this initial surge of activity, we can have a more regular process just to make sure that we’re crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s going forward.
The mainstream press in its wisdom tells us that Klain is a good manager. His accomplishment? He managed the allocation of stimulus funds. Take a moment to think about that.
Is Klain competent “to make sure that we’re crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s going forward?” When it comes to epidemiology, does he have any idea what are the I’s and what are the T’s? I have my doubts.
And do we not have a CDC and a director who has the training and the experience so that we could assume he really does know what are the I’s and what are the T’s? If the man whom Barack Obama hired in 2009 to handle this task is not up to the job (which may well be the case), should he not be replaced . . . perhaps by an epidemiologist who has not frittered away his time in recent years on the banning of soda pop in large containers?
What is going on is obvious. Ron Klain is exceptionally good at managing things . . . politically. He is good, for example, at seeing that the stimulus money ends up in the hands of clients of the Democratic Party. And my guess is that he will do a whole lot better than Tom Frieden did at managing public expectations — at “damage control.”
Klain’s new job is not to protect thee and me from an outbreak of Ebola. It is to protect the President from an outbreak of criticism. That was the task assigned Tom Frieden. But when sent out to say what is obviously untrue — that we do not need to bar from the US travelers who have spent time in the countries in West Africa where Ebola is widespread — he repeatedly made a fool out of himself. Every word of reassurance he uttered made us feel less secure.
Perhaps this ploy will work for the President. The man is a master of gestures. He has made one problem after another disappear from public view by means of a public statement or a meaningless act.
But this trick might not work this time. No one who bothers to think for two or three minutes will be reassured by a decision to entrust an epidemiological crisis to a man with no epidemiological expertise.
The Republican candidates for the Senate, if they had any moxie, would join together and in a chorus denounce this appointment as transparent window-dressing.
Published in General
I thought Obama already had an Ebola czar – Dr. Nicole Lurie. So do we have one czar or two? Or is it like when the Catholic church has two popes, except instead of a pope and an anti-pope we have an Ebola czar and an anti-Ebola czar? Or is this like the credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where Lurie was sacked for inserting moose jokes into the Ebola movie opening credits?
Seawriter
Yeah, I heard this on NPR this morning who raised not one eyebrow, one millimeter (this is NPR, afterall). Pretty much what you would expect from this administration. I’m sure our fearless media will be only too happy to oblige Mr. Klain’s efforts on behalf of Obama.
If I heard correctly this morning, he was the lead in pushing forward the Solyndra loan.
And think what a success that was . . . for a while.
At least Obama is consistent and predictable. If he did something meaningful or useful, that would be a newsworthy happening.
Really, should the head of the CDC even be the guy whose job it is to go on TV and reassure the American public that they won’t get Ebola?
Wouldn’t it make more sense that the head of the CDC would be hard at work helping to make sure that the American public doesn’t get Ebola, and that the job of appearing on TV would be delegated to one of the CDC’s senior communications staffers?
The guy who managed the Stimulus is now working with the doctor (Dr. Frieden, CDC) who was behind the NYC soda ban to fight Ebola, what could go wrong with this?
Haven’t been following this Obama guy for the last 6 years, have you?
Maybe next year we can get a czar czar. Ignoring Putin would be so much more fun with weekly press conferences that pointedly avoid his name.
For those prepared to believe the party line, here is Ezra Klein:
One reason the president may feel the need to appoint an “Ebola Czar” is that the country is currently operating without a permanent Surgeon-General, and a “czar” appointment does not require congressional approval.
However, that does not explain why the Acting Surgeon-General, Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak, isn’t considered good enough to do the job of communicating factual information about Ebola to the American public.
Sounds like Zsa Zsa’s kid sister.
That reminds me of when the HSA was invented — attempting to cure bureaucratic failures of communication and coordination with more bureaucracy.
You can bet that our new “czar” will establish his own circle of assistant czars, secretary czars, and assistant secretary czars.
Sorta like the Department of Administrative Affairs.
;-)
You know what’s funny?
The number of media outlets that ridiculed (rightly, IMHO) the idea of an “ebola czar” earlier in the week when it was John McCain’s idea, but who are silent on the question now that the President has gone and done it:
.
This also illustrates the danger of Republicans demanding that the President “do something” because he might go ahead and give them what they ask for.
You should turn this into a post, in which you quote the more fragrant bits. It is a hoot.
It’s true that Frieden has stumbled both in communicating his approach to the epidemic, and in the substance of that approach. But I suspect that if some junior person were the one answering questions his stock answer would be, “I’ll have to run that past the director.” Then, he becomes another Josh Earnest offering defensive but content-empty utterances.
I had this same debate with a co-worker, and my position was (and still is) that a staffer giving honest non-answers is still better than a top executive giving mendacious wrong answers.
Obama’s sycophants and defenders can now claim that he has done all that his critics wanted him to do. He has cancelled fundraisers. He has met with his crisis team. He has appointed a czar.
What more do you people want from this good man?
Frieden’s answers may be “wrong” in the sense that they are misguided, sometimes turn out to be wrong, and are maybe even stupid. But I’m not sure that they are mendacious. He has certainly been overtaken by events.
My problem with getting information from flacks is that they are not accountable. How many times did Jay Carney flat out lie to us about every subject under the sun?
How many times? No more often than his boss.
Strange how that never stopped all the armchair-epidemiologists here from posting about 3 dozen threads in the last week on how this should be handled.
Am I right Dr. Rahe?
Come on, AIG. Even a fourteen-year-old has the sense to know that one needs to keep one’s distance from those who are contagious with a disease apt to kill. One has no need to be an epidemiologist to know the obvious. One does not need to consult an electrician to know that the light is on.
But what is required if one is to manage on a national scale an epidemiological crisis — that really does require at least a passing knowledge of epidemiology.
Where Thomas Frieden went wrong was in repeatedly telling us what we all know to be false. His finest moment was the one in which he repeated the President’s claim that one was in no danger if one sat down on a bus next to someone with Ebola and then went on to say that those with Ebola should not board buses lest they pass the disease to someone else.
When putative experts who are political appointees speak reassuring nonsense, one knows that they are doing damage control for the politicians whom they serve — and Thomas Frieden lost everyone’s respect (even, I suspect, yours) when he did that. His job, as he understood it, was to protect the President from criticism. He repeatedly made a fool of himself — and that is why for the next seventeen days we will be hearing solely from Ron Klain.
I expect we will hear a lot, but learn very little.
Hey, everything’s cool! I just heard the new czar will be reporting to Paragon of Honesty and Forthrightness, Susan Rice.
We will hear soothing words. And, if there is another outbreak in, say, New York City, we will hear a lot of talk about decisive action.
Let’s hope we all get lucky, and no one else with Ebola jumps on a plane for the United States.
I do not, however, think that we will be that lucky. Even if we moved to bar from the US those who had been in the affected countries, I suspect that someone would get through — especially given the fact that our border to the south is essentially unguarded.
As you pulling my leg?
Wellll, I don’t think it’s ever been possible that Ebola can be kept out of the country completely, so I can’t bring myself to condemn the government simply because the virus is able to get though the cracks.
The question for me is whether the government is making good decisions and taking good actions, all things considered, not whether they’re successful in keeping the virus out completely, because I don’t think any government would be capable of that.
I mean, what’s to stop someone from West Africa flying to my country? We haven’t imposed a travel ban either. If someone is able to get past the quarantine officer at Toronto International, I’m not going to blame the Prime Minister.
The problem is that the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be trying, or at least isn’t communicating very well what actions it is taking.
If there is anyone out there who thinks that the appointment of Ron Klain is a good idea, he should read Ron Fournier’s piece in The National Journal, which is entitled “Naked Politics: The Ebola Czar Has No Clothes,” while keeping in mind the fact that Fournier is a Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
AIG, are you out there?
Let’s see, you know you’ve come in contact with Ebola, you’ve heard some people have been successfully treated in the US, and you have some money. You could be like Thomas Duncan, who traveled with “six strikes” – Male, travelling alone, on a one-way ticket purchased same day with cash…(don’t remember the other). What would you do?