Ebola Political Contagion The President’s New Anti-Disease Czar Has No Experience With Disease.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/ebola-political-contagion-1413586507?mod=hp_opinion
President Obama bowed to the growing Ebola political furor on Friday and named a so-called Ebola czar, though maybe the better label is apparatchik. His man isn’t a military general, despite the troops in West Africa, or even someone with so much as nominal expertise in disasters or infectious disease. He’s the political operative Ron Klain.
President Obama is selling the new position as an “Ebola Response Coordinator” to restore order and manage operations across government. This would seem to require some familiarity with epidemiology and federal assets like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Klain’s resume does not extend much beyond his stints as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden , unless you count his job quarterbacking the Solyndra fiasco as no big deal.
If you’ve been exposed to fault-finding in Mr. Obama’s Ebola campaign and experienced symptoms such as chills, anxiety or skepticism—or you’re worried that you’ve communicated such criticism to others—do not fear. We know this epidemic can be stopped, and Mr. Klain’s field team will apply triage, contact tracing and meticulous political infection control practices.
Then again, anonymous White House aides are telling the press corps that Mr. Klain’s partisan skills as a fixer are a credential. This may be the best indication to date of how Mr. Obama regards the dangers of the Ebola crisis, with risks to his own approval ratings near the top. Maybe three-star commander Valerie Jarrett can next prosecute the air war against Islamic State, if she isn’t already.
Mr. Klain’s appointment is even less reassuring considering it is devised in part to counter the more unfortunate ideas circulating in other political precincts. Republicans and a few Democrats aren’t immune to political fever either, in particular on a travel ban for West Africa.
Grounding flights and connections has some intuitive appeal, and polls show that eight or nine of every 10 Americans support the idea. For this reason, expect Mr. Obama to embrace some form of a ban soon. “I don’t have a philosophical objection necessarily to a travel ban if that is the thing that is going to keep the American people safe,” he said on Thursday, toning down his opposition.
Heightened surveillance of passports, visas and points of origin from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, or limits on nonessential travel, could perhaps offer protection at the margin. But enforcing a stricter cordon could also set off a chain reaction with other nations imposing them as well. Fragile regional governments, economies and cross-border trade could be undermined; relief materiel and personnel would be more expensive to transport via charter; and regional fear and panic could spike even more.
The best among bad policy options are those that create the fewest new vectors for Ebola to spread. The illusion of sealing off the U.S. border or restricting North American and global integration is a false hope.
A travel ban is also unlikely to mitigate the potential domestic hot zone, which is now much broader than the still-minor Dallas outbreak. The main reason is that public institutions with a residual reputation for competence continue to undermine their credibility. From the World Health Organization to the CDC down to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, officials underestimated the early threats and then were overconfident in their powers against an unforgiving disease.
Ebola was said to be containable as long as the protocols were followed. The virus’s spread in Africa and on U.S. soil meant the protocols had been breached, until it meant that the protocols themselves were wrong.
Life does not obey protocols. Failure, uncertainty and error are inevitable in human affairs. And institutions learn from mistakes.
So far all these truths have emerged except perhaps the last one. Instead of turning to the special federal emergency offices that were created after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to respond to a future contingency like Dallas, Mr. Obama promotes Mr. Klain. Despite his rhetorical missteps, at least CDC director Tom Frieden knows the medical issues and won’t have to be briefed for hours by officials who should be fighting Ebola on the front lines.
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It’s instructive that Mr. Obama invoked a “philosophical objection,” as if effectiveness in fighting Ebola has some ideological valence. The animating theme of his Presidency was that he would repair the post-Reagan reputation of government to expand its role in American life. The experts would remake health care, chaperone the levels of the oceans and reorganize the larger economy, and the public would once again turn to the we-the-government “collective action” Mr. Obama extolled in his Second Inaugural address.
Ebola poses a danger to this project in the sense that the apparatus of the state seems incapable of performing even its legitimate role. Thus Mr. Klain, and the continued ascension of politics over competence.
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