Tom Frieden is an idiot. He went to two of the most leftwing "educational" institutions there are: Oberlin and Columbia. I wouldn't trust him to put a bandaid on a paper cut. His major was in marxism.
Defund the CDC! Get out of the UN and its worthless UNICEF and WHO agencies.
Ping.
He doubles down.
If a Republican were in the White House the Alinsky tactics would be used in full force by the Democrats by now. Remember the screams for Michael Brown’s head after Katrina? It took only three days of 24/7 pillorying of Brown for Bush to accept his resignation. Bush looked weak defending Brown, and then looked weaker for firing him a day after praising him. Once Brown was gone, the Democrats were relentless in blaming Katrina on a Bush. The Bush presidency went into a tailspin from which it never recovered, setting up the GOP electoral debacles of 2006 and 2008..
We are in the last weeks of a major election campaign and have the potential for a deadly epidemic to sweep across the country thanks to the incompetent policy decisions of the President and this leftist fool at the CDC. If the Republicans are afraid to attack the President in the same way the Dems attacked Bush after Katrina, this CDC director makes a perfect proxy target now that a second healthcare worker has contracted Ebola.
Obama has been very slow to fire incompetents in his administration and in many cases doubles down in their defense (Holder and Rice for example). Today Republicans in unison should be demanding the resignation of the CDC head and strict border controls. Obama will likely hang tough and the Ebola news will get worse every day. Dem candidates will either have to support the President or repudiate his handling of the crisis. If they support Obama they look like fools, if they criticize Obama it weakens him.
Ebola represents failure of the President in three major policy areas which concern any discerning voter and likely some of the low information voters. Ebola represents healthcare, national defense, and border security (I.e. Immigration) wrapped up in one package. The low information voter may still believe Obamacare is good because he hasn’t experienced the cost increases coming from the employer mandate, may believe Tea Party opposition to amnesty is about racism, and may not care about ISIS because no one he knows serves in the military. However, even the most stupid citizens understand Ebola represents almost certain death for those who catch it, know the disease is being brought in from outside the country, and can grasp the concept that if people who have the disease aren’t allowed into the country there is less chance of catching it. They also know Obama is in charge, not Bush, not the Tea Party, not obscure budget cuts two years ago. They will hold him accountable if they fear for their lives.
Ebola is the October surprise. Today every Republican should be demanding in unison the resignation of the CDC head and the banning of travel from the affected areas. Yes, the same press that gleefully poured out the Democrat propaganda on Katrina will accuse the Republicans of politicizing the issue. However, when people are afraid, their eyes open and their primal instincts take over. Nature has them wired to avoid life threatening danger. Every time the members of this administration say there is no danger in letting potentially diseased people freely cross the border they are telling people to ignore the survival instinct imprinted into every living creature. That instinct tells people if you can’t flee the danger, do something to keep it away.
Rahman Emmanuel was famous for saying, “Don’t let a crisis go to waste.” Can the GOP use this issue to make 2014 a sea change election, like the Dems did taking the House in 2006? If they do they can make Obama irrelevant for the next 2 years the same way Bush was made impotent from 2006 to the end of his second term. If they do play this on the side of the people, and play it aggressively, all of the tight races will swing their way. Can Rove and the other election consultants advising the candidates seize the issue and the opportunity? Can Boehner and McConnell get in front of the cameras and actually look like strong leaders in a time of crisis when
Obama is fumbling badly? The next few days will determine if 2014 is a monumental sweep or just another footnote in the history of a dying political party.