Why Don't We Have A Doctor Leading The Charge Against Ebola?

The ugly faces of the Texas Ebola problem

Republicans are still trying to make Ebola a campaign issue.

Yesterday we saw how Republicans have used fear mongering to imply Democratic women candidates are not up to the job of fighting Ebola (or ISIS)-- despite the courageous work women, from nurses to CIA agents, are actually doing on the front lines in both battles. Now Republican lawmakers have been caterwauling that Obama appointed a bureaucrat as Ebola Czar instead of a doctor, seemingly unaware-- or worse, deceitful-- that every single Republican-- including fake moderates like Susan Collins (R-ME), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Mark Kirk (R-IL)-- blocked the president's nomination for Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, a physician from Florida. He was nominated in November, 2013 and, at the insistence of the NRA, Rand Paul put a block on his nomination. (He called assault weapons a health care issue and the gun nuts flipped out.)

Brad Bannon, writing for US News and World Report pointed out the Republican hypocrisy. "Republicans, shamefully criticizing President Barack Obama’s response to the problem, are like someone who drills a hole in the bottom of a ship and then blames the captain for sinking it."

Sadly we don’t have one because the GOP has blocked a vote on the president’s nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to the post. Murthy has the ideal background for the job: Currently he is a doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, one of the best hospitals in the nation. He is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Murphy has a medical degree and an MBA from Yale University and an undergraduate degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard.

Why would GOP senators have blocked a vote on the nomination of a doctor with medical credentials such as Murthy’s? The answer, of course, is the iron grip the National Rifle Association has on the Republican Party. The NRA objects to Murthy’s nomination because he believes that guns are a public health hazard. And it’s pretty obvious to everybody except the NRA die-hards that guns are a clear and present danger since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports there were 335,609 gun deaths in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. If that’s not an epidemic, nothing is... [T]he GOP would rather take on the president than Ebola and would rather use the health crisis as a partisan battering ram than work with Obama to deal with this grave health crisis. Republicans are using Ebola as a political football, and it’s time for a bye week.

Texas crackpot senator Ted Cruz-- whose state is the epicenter of the American Ebola crisis-- claims, quite falsely, that Murthy "we don’t have [a surgeon general] because President Obama, instead of nominating a health professional, he nominated someone who is an anti-gun activist. We expect this from someone like Ted Cruz, but why are professed "centrists" like Susan Collins following him (over the cliff)? Republicans in the House don't even seem aware that Republicans are blocking the confirmation of the president's surgeon general nominee. Take Tea Party spokesmodel, Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) who went whining to Fox that the surgeon general should be heading Ebola response. He seems to be missing one vital piece of information-- and Fox isn't about to enlighten him.

Utah GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Wednesday questioned President Obama's decision to appoint what he considers a political operative to lead the country's Ebola response, instead of the acting-United States surgeon general.

"I want a doctor telling me how to deal with this," Chaffetz said on Fox News'America's Newsroom."

Obama on Friday named Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Biden, to the Ebola post.

"You have somebody who's got a medical history, background, expertise, who understands the bureaucracy," Chaffetz said. "Why aren't we empowering that person? I don't understand why the Obama administration is doing it this way, but they chose somebody who's political and not somebody who is actually a doctor."

Chaffetz said Klain is already "off to a bad start," considering that on Monday he told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he could not testify at an upcoming hearing.

"It seemed like a simple request, but he refused," Chaffetz said.

"What does that say about this position that he's filling? If he doesn't feel comfortable answering very basic questions from Congress, is he really ready to be up on the job when it's happening in real time, right now?"

Chaffetz also put blame on the president for eliminating a bio-defense special assistant position that was present in the previous two administrations.

"It's bigger and broader than just Ebola," he said. "There are other types of things that can be infectious diseases or bio-attacks on the homeland. And yet, President Obama got rid of that position."

Yep, Republicans want to fight Obama-- and women-- not Ebola... and not any other legitimate threats to the well-being of America or Americans. It's in their obstructionist, selfish DNA. That's why they're Republicans.