Protection Please

Several weeks ago, I questioned why the government permitted Ebola victims to be flown back to the U.S. for treatment.  The safest way to deal with a virus is to keep it out.  Period.  Organisms are hard to control and mutate and scientists have been warning of a for some time.  Pandemics are to biological systems what crashes are to economic systems. They happen.

But the Obama administration blithely ignored those risks and not only brought victims here, refused to impose a travel ban on flights from Africa that are known "hot zones."  Of course, the predictable happened (even though Obama asserted that it would be unlikely).  Ebola got here.  People made mistakes.  And now we have had our first transmissions of Ebola in the U.S.

Tom Frieden, head of the CDC gave us cold comfort when he cavalierly asserted that, "we can control Ebola."  I feel so much better now.

Job 1 for the government is to protect its citizens from harm.   The problem now is that government has gotten so big and so preoccupied with all the other things that it has undertaken, that it cannot perform its primary function.   And, under Obama, we have seen repeated failures to protect and those failures are disturbingly frequent.  In the past couple of years, we have seen Benghazi, the rise of ISIS, the failure of the Secret Service to protect the White House, and now, a micro-organism.

The rank incompetence of government now is breathtaking.  And those in charge simply blame shift.  ISIS has been blamed on Bush.  Susan Rice blamed Benghazi on some two bit filmmaker.   Lois Lerner blamed the IRS targeting of conservatives on a "rogue office" (and now asserts that holding her accountable is due to anti-Semitism).   Eric Holder blamed Fast and Furious on low level functionaries (and similarly asserted that criticism of his administration was due to racism).  The Obama administration follows a predictable pattern.  In today's New York Times, Obama is reportedly angry over the response to Ebola.  First, they blame shift.  Then they get angry.

Contagions, like nuclear weapons, often do not allow for a large margin of error.  This government has now shown that it cannot adequately protect its leader or its embassies.  How can we expect it to protect the rest of us?  Obama admitted that he underestimated ISIS.  Is he now similarly underestimating Ebola?

Obama now is contemplating appointing and "Ebola czar."  If he appoints Kathleen Sebelius, I think I may head to the North Woods with a survival pack for awhile.