Democrats, as a party, are scared excrementless (that\’s the long-form way of saying it) over the ebola crisis.
They are scared because it is a deadly virus that might quickly spread in the USA, and they are scared because voters might start blaming someone for it (not necessarily in that order).
Obviously, if the blame falls on someone, Democrats would like it to fall on their opponents, not them. So they are strategizing how to shunt off of blame for ebola on Republicans.
Can they do it?
Well, one huge – maybe insurmountable – problem for them doing so is President Obama.
Just last month Mr. Obama was making light of the possibility that ebola would come to this country…which it did, all of a week later. And since it did, he has refused to stop air flights to and from the most affected countries (as Republicans – and now more and more Democrats – are demanding that he do).
Then there is CDC Director, Thomas Freiden – an Obama appointee. Freiden has made a succession of comments about ebola (e.g. banning flights would not contain the virus, it would spread it, you can transmit ebola on a bus, but you can\’t get it on a bus) so absurd that they would be laughed out of an average elementary school class.
So, given this very difficult set of circumstances, what strategies are Democrats floating to turn this into a negative for Republicans?
They\’re trying two things (so far). Let\’s take them one by one:
Strategy 1: Telling voters that Republicans have forced cuts in the National Institute for Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC), and those cuts are why these entities were unable to prevent ebola from coming here.
Both claims are lies.
As I showed in a previous blog, and you can check for yourself, NIH funding increased by 64% during the presidency of George Bush – Barack Obama\’s predecessor. And it has held about steady (within 5%) under Barack Obama. Plus, President Obama himself proposed cuts in NIH funding. So, unless Mr. Obama changed parties the day he made that request, it seems to me that Republicans can\’t be blamed for it.
Even the usually Obama-friendly Washington Post, along with the leftward, Obama-supporting Huffington Post, acknowledge that President Obama called for cuts to the both the NIH and CDC budgets.
In fact, this year, the CDC got a $567 million dollar increase in funding to $6.9 billion dollars – only because the Republican-controlled house insisted on it, instead of the $6.6 billion dollar budget proposed by President Obama. Read all about it here.
Unless you think that $6.6 billion is more than $6.9 billion, that means it was Republicans who were responsible for more money allocated to the CDC, and President Obama who proposed $300 million less.
Strategy #2: Claiming that Republicans prevented President Obama from appointing a Surgeon General earlier this year, and, if there had been one, his/her existence would somehow have prevented ebola from hitting our shores.
Let\’s forget, for just a moment, how ludicrous this is on its face (I\’ll bet you can\’t name either the person President Obama proposed as Surgeon General or the person he would replace*). There is nothing – repeat, nothing – a Surgeon General does that would have stopped ebola from coming here.
Believing otherwise pretty much requires you to fantasize that the Surgeon General puts on a Superman suit, stands at every airport and border, and physically blocks ebola from entering the country.
Uh….I don\’t think so.
Maybe if you\’re 6 years old and into Scooby-Doo, you will buy this. I\’d like to think most people aren\’t, and won\’t.
But, tell you what: for the sake of discussion, let us suppose that this nonsensical premise is correct, and the Surgeon General would have been capable of stopping ebola. Then, given the importance of a Surgeon General being in place, why didn\’t President Obama scrap the one he had in mind and offer a different nominee that Republicans could live with – one who therefore would have been in place to prevent ebola from coming here?
See, when two sides disagree, it means that two sides disagree, not just one side. To blame Republicans for rejecting Barack Obama\’s Surgeon General nominee, is concomitantly to blame President Obama for nominating a Surgeon General who Republicans would reject, and then not offering any alternative. It takes two to tango.
There you have it. This is how Democrats are trying to blame the ebola crisis on Republicans.
Will they succeed?
All it would take is enough voters who are either so ignorant, or so dumbed-down, or so umbilically attached to Democrats that it doesn\’t matter whether what they say makes any sense, to buy this BS, for the answer to be yes.
Personally I don\’t think it will. Though often battered, my confidence in the intelligence of most Americans to know BS when they see it, remains intact.
Boy do I hope I\’m right.
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*FYI: The Surgeon General nominee who has been held up – for over a half year – with no alternative provided by President Obama, is Dr. Vivek Murthy. The previous Surgeon General was Dr. Regina Benjamin.
Household names both, I\’m sure…..at least in the Murthy and Benjamin households.
