OBAMA’S AMERICA – EPISODE 194 – EBOLA FAILURE

“I SURE WISH I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING”

By Arthur Piccolo

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Oct. 17, 2014: Question …What is Barack Obama’s biggest disappointment about Ebola?

Answer ….

He has had to cancel a couple of those glitzy fund raising dinners he craves in homes of the rich and beautiful he flies to on Air Force One constantly.

How true is that? You decide but it certainly rings true.

There is no doubt Obama was all set to leave DC yet again on Air Force One, his magic carpet, to do some more private fund raising until he decided he’d better stay in DC and look like he was doing something about the Ebola crisis.

Now this from The New York Times today 10/15/14 ..,,

“Many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday.”

Let’s have that again …

“because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax.”

That is ….. FEDERAL guidelines that were too lax.

This is for a deadly and highly contagious disease that first appeared back in December last year in West Africa in its latest outbreak – that is 10 long months ago and it has become visibly far more dangerous ever since.

To continue …

“The agency’s NEW voluntary guidelines include full-body suits covering the head and neck, supervision of the risky process of taking off protective gear, and the use of hand disinfectant as each item is removed.”

But these are the same safety measures Doctors Without Boarders and other groups involved with this disease have long used in protecting themselves and others against Ebola.

Listen to this view of the inadequate Federal guidelines until now ..

“Sean G. Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first two American Ebola patients, called the earlier C.D.C. guidelines “absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.”

That is right the earlier ridiculous guidelines …

“absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.”

So here is where I am going with this. A comment I posted to a NY Times article about Ebola yesterday …

What we are witnessing with Ebola is a very SCARY example of the reality of how incompetent our government often is at every level when reality makes it impossible for officials to hide the truth from us.

We are the victims of government controlled by special interests who effectively “employ it (sic) in opposition to the general welfare and and the inherent result of this failure is that our govt. agencies do not operate effectively.

It gets even worse because the men and women appointed to head the various govt agencies come from the ranks of the special interest and likewise intend to return there to reap the rewards for doing a “good” sic) job while in public service.

Put in this context, the government’s incompetent response to Ebola is not surprising. It fits the larger pattern.

So here is the important leap I am making beyond Ebola as much as that is the immediate crisis. A very troubling and the far wider problem is the general condition of government and it points a very useful explanation of its cause and why this is about Obama’s America.

Is President Obama responsible for the current Ebola crisis in America?. There are three ways his culpability can be judged. He loses on two. No he did nothing at all that led to this specific situation in Dallas. Obama had nothing to do with the Ebola carrier coming here from Liberia. Although that could be debated but we’ll leave that issue aside.

Everything else since speaks to Obama and his Administration in highly significant ways. Obama only recently became engaging in the Ebola pandemic in West Africa that is now 10 months old. And as for the situation in Dallas and now other places, it was only yesterday he focused on it and yes even changed his never ending travel schedule to stay in DC.

Beyond all this, my primary devastating criticism of Barack Obama in this week’s episode embraces Ebola but goes far beyond it. Because this situation and the entire Obama Presidency is about a LACK OF LEADERSHIP.

There is an even deeper “sinister” aspect of this lack of leadership. Beyond Obama’s personal lack of leadership qualities there is an institutional foundation for this dismal situation. And whether it has to do with “absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong” Federal standards for dealing with Ebola or an endless number of other issues and policies of “our” Federal government at its heart is the core problem about what ultimately defines who and why decisions are made by the Federal government.

What is Obama’s egregious moral and practical offense? That he has done nothing to end this cycle of pernicious dependency. That he has done nothing to foster a new standard of accountability. That he has not spoken out again and again against this incestuous system. He is the key part of the problem.

And this problem infects every aspect of our government. To bring this back to Ebola and the lack of preparedness and the fatally flawed standards for dealing with Ebola and its victims, it is that there is no driving imperative to make sure the government gets it right; no culture of seeking for perfection.

The proof is right in front of us if Federal officials did nothing more than adopt standards that Doctors Without Borders who are volunteers fighting infectious diseases and others with far less power and resources – if they did nothing more than borrow the standards of Doctors Without Borders – there would be no panic about Ebola and its potential spread in America.

Being President of the United States and doing an adequate let alone a superior job as President means providing this LEADERSHIP we need that will set the standard for and inspire every government decision maker.

Instead we are left with Woeful Barack Obama as President. Woe is us!

About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.