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President Obama’s Ebola problem (questions about the president’s competency)
The Hill ^ | October 16, 2014 | Justin Sink

Posted on 10/16/2014 6:48:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

The Ebola crisis in the United States has become an anchor threatening to sink the Obama presidency.

Already under fire from critics who saw the federal response to the outbreak as disorganized and timid, things went from bad to worse on Wednesday when it was revealed a second nurse had contracted the disease while treating a Liberian man at a Dallas-area hospital.

More alarmingly, the diagnosis was made just hours after the nurse, 29-year-old Amber Vinson, had flown from Cleveland to Dallas on a commercial airliner, despite reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she had a fever.

That Vinson was allowed to travel at all — along with continued questions about why federal procedures for Ebola treatment appear not to have been implemented in Dallas — have prompted serious questions about the administration’s handling of the disease less than three weeks before the midterm elections.

Democrats are expected to lose significant ground in those contests, in no small part due to public dissatisfaction with Obama and resilient questions about the president’s competency.

And concessions from the White House and CDC that there were multiple “shortcomings” in the administration’s response are only likely to deepen those fears.

The president has little political capital to spare.

Obama’s approval ratings were already at a record low of 40 percent according to a Washington Post / ABC News poll released Wednesday — and taken before news of the new Ebola patient broke. That same survey found just 39 percent of voters see the Democrats favorably — the worst showing for Obama’s party since 1984.

The precipice on which the president now rests is eerily similar to the one that confronted former President George W. Bush at the same point in his term.

The former president, doomed by a series of political and policy missteps, became quickly viewed as incompetent, limiting his ability to effectively govern.

Obama hasn’t had a major error like Katrina or the War in Iraq. But the cumulative effect of careening through an unrelenting two years of crises, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Secret Service, has had a similar effect on perceptions of the president.

The “No drama Obama” White House has long prided itself on not overreacting to crises.

They say Obama is far more concerned about the nuts and bolts of governing than short-term political gains or losses playing out in the media.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, asked Wednesday whether Obama remained confident in CDC Director Tom Friedman, said “that pointing fingers of blame will not be constructive here.”

“What’s evident, I think, from this president’s leadership style is that he’s focused on solving problems,” said Earnest, who steadfastly denied ulterior motives for the president’s canceling of a campaign and fundraising swing. Obama instead met with senior staff on the Ebola response. (The president also canceled his events on Thursday to focus on Ebola.)

The major takeaway from that meeting was the creation of CDC “SWAT teams” that would swarm to local hospitals to help them implement proper policy procedures if another American patient was diagnosed with Ebola — something the agency itself had already announced a day prior.

Obama did not name a czar to lead the government’s response, nor did he toughen travel bans to the West African countries where the Ebola outbreak is pervasive, as some Republicans have suggested.

That left many questioning why the CDC hadn’t already had strike teams in place, given that Ebola had surfaced months earlier — and again underscored perceptions the administration appeared reactive rather than proactive.

History suggests that the president’s measured response to crises has not paid dividends. While White House officials chortle at “phony scandals” like the IRS targeting of political groups or the terror attacks in Benghazi, polls show that trust in the government and the president’s handling of foreign policy have been steadily eroding.

And while the president has long resisted efforts by Republicans to bully him into firing top officials, the result has been a steady trickle of bad news that ends up causing more damage to his administration. Just weeks ago, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned after a growing list of blunders became too significant to ignore. Months earlier, Obama was similarly reticent to cut ties with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

Rather than seeming above the fray, Obama can appear detached and distant.

Obama himself acknowledged the problem earlier this month when pressed on why he played golf immediately after giving a statement on the beheading of American journalist James Foley at the hands of ISIS.

“There's always going to be some tough news somewhere, it's going to be there,” Obama told 60 Minutes. “But there's no doubt that after having talked to the families, where it was hard for me to hold back tears listening to the pain that they were going through after the statement that I made, that I should've anticipated the optics.”

But that’s done little to change his behavior, or how the White House calibrates its response to crises.

Asked Wednesday if the administration had at all considered the politics of the Ebola crisis, Earnest jumped to insist they had not.

“I’m sure there are many people who have considered the political ramifications of this response and today’s decision to alter the schedule, but the fact is that that hasn’t crossed the minds of the president’s senior advisers here at the White House,” he said.

But for the president — and the congressional Democrats fighting alongside him for their political survival — it might be time for the White House to do just that.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ebola; incompetent; lameduck; obama; obola; present
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There is not enough lipstick to pretty up this pig.
1 posted on 10/16/2014 6:48:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife; GeronL

This office is above Obama’s pay grade...


2 posted on 10/16/2014 6:49:39 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Hey Obama: If Islamic State is not Islamic, then why did you give Osama Bin Laden a muslim funeral?)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Obama has his legacy!


3 posted on 10/16/2014 6:51:52 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The man who damns money obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it earned it." --Ayn Rand)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Would it be wrong to hang around polling places in democrat areas wearing a Hazmat costume on election day?


4 posted on 10/16/2014 6:53:28 AM PDT by Mechanicos (Nothing's so small it can't be blown out of proportion.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The Oministration just sees the "ebola problem" as a political issue with a political solution, which means they just have to weigh their political options, churn it through the bureaucracy, develop a solution, draft legislation, enact laws and regulations, develop some talking points, make some speeches, and *boom* the problem will be solved.

By the time they realize that their speechifying and political calculating isn't doing anything to stop the spread of ebola, it will be too late.

5 posted on 10/16/2014 6:54:50 AM PDT by caligatrux (...some animals are more equal than others.)
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To: Mechanicos

Better get your hazmat suit while you can, if it isn’t too late already. It is the #1 trick-or-treat costume for 2014.


6 posted on 10/16/2014 6:55:20 AM PDT by Genoa (Starve the beast.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

We can see how he’s f’d up everything else he’s touched. This will be no different.


7 posted on 10/16/2014 6:57:41 AM PDT by b4its2late (A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

These stories to me all miss the point. His actions are deliberate yet directed by others. He is simply the unassailable public face mouthpiece.


8 posted on 10/16/2014 6:58:51 AM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur: non vehere est inermus)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

I would point this out....the 1917 flu epidemic in the US...got virtually ‘no comment’ from President Wilson, and drew almost no federal response whatsoever. You can look via newspapers and historical reports....but the executive office just gazed and watched the whole thing develop. You can label the Wilson presidency as mostly a failure, with the exception of WW I actions. If WW I had not occurred, it’d be a pretty dismal record.

I see the same score here with the President and current team. How to milk this for political gain just won’t work. They’d need a whole new team around the President, to realize the implications here and do the right things.


9 posted on 10/16/2014 6:59:47 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: Genoa

Better to get right with whatever deity you believe in and spend time with your families. Not that a hazmat sute, a real one is a bad idea.

But it’s gonna be a real ugly place for a long time for the survivors.


10 posted on 10/16/2014 7:00:45 AM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

in all 6 years in office Obama has never done ANYTHING competently. Why would he start now?


11 posted on 10/16/2014 7:02:08 AM PDT by Cubs Fan (The ferguson rioters, looters and arsonists are DOMESTIC LEFT WING TERRORISTS)
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To: Mechanicos

GOOD ONE. Almost lost coffee all over my monitor. That is a great idea.


12 posted on 10/16/2014 7:02:15 AM PDT by NEMDF
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From the article:

Obama hasn’t had a major error like Katrina or the War in Iraq.

Bush did everything right before and after Katrina, but the lame-stream media just keeps blaming him for the Louisiana Democrats' failures. He also WON the war in Iraq.

By contrast, Obola has (purposely?) screwed up the Ebola crisis so badly it has even given him a new name. Oh, and he also LOST the war in Iraq, as well as the "more important" (to Obola) Afghan war.

Only a knee-pad wearing clown could make the statement that Obola hasn't had a error "like Bush."

13 posted on 10/16/2014 7:02:20 AM PDT by Henchster (Free Republic - the BEST site on the web!)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Obama hasn’t had a major error like Katrina or the War in Iraq.

Oh for Petes sake.

14 posted on 10/16/2014 7:03:14 AM PDT by MileHi (Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Obama’s lack of competency is a small item compared to his anti-Americanism and complete lack of patriotism.

He is an enemy agent for whoever the enemy of the day may be.

He is determined to place the interests of almost everyone else in the world ahead of the interests of Americans.


15 posted on 10/16/2014 7:03:39 AM PDT by Iron Munro (We can make it work with only one square per restroom visit -- Sheryl Crow)
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To: Blueflag

What you said is true. And he is instructed, at some point of each crisis, to do the bare minimum needed in an attempt to save face, so that the Kool-Aid drinkers can talk it up to the MSM about the fact that he’s trying to solve things, but not for the GOP and budget cuts, it would all be under control.


16 posted on 10/16/2014 7:04:09 AM PDT by NEMDF
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Misusing the power of the US govt, Obama’s brought the Middle Ages into the 21st century.
It has been verified that our southern/Mexican border has been violated by invaders from 144 antediluvian, disease-ridden countries-—all of whom gather in Mexico b/c they know Obama is rubber-stamping them in——no questions asked.

Carriers of TB, Ebola, Chikungunya, Dengue fever, Norovirus. Hantavirus, Swine flu, Varicella. Variola, E-coli.......and carriers of childhood diseases America stamped out years ago.......are all here in our communitities, in our schools, in our stores and restaurants....handling our food and merchandise

The Obama admin has kept top-secret:

<><> medical/contagion conditions of minors transported to US schools....

<><> contagion status of contaminated Border-holding facilities;

<><> contagion status of contaminated public transportation used to relocate minors.......

<><> dangers to Americans from contaminated illegals in the marketplace, handling our food, merchandise...

<><> monetary costs to American taxpayers, forced to subsidize these diseased-ridden parasites.


17 posted on 10/16/2014 7:05:02 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
QUESTIONS? QUESTIONS?!

I think we have the answers by now.

18 posted on 10/16/2014 7:06:05 AM PDT by Paine in the Neck (Socialism consumes EVERYTHING)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I read an article yesterday that said if we get a few people in different parts of the country who get Ebola and they don’t know where they got it from, then that will be a sign that we will never get rid of it. It will be here to stay and it will completely change the entire country. People will be paranoid as hell to go out in public, there will be de-contamination stations all over the place like metal detectors, and we’ll be living in a world where at any time you can die within a few weeks. In other words the REAL result of Obamas “fundamental transformation”. If that happens I wonder if people would STILL be stupid enough to vote Democrat.


19 posted on 10/16/2014 7:08:23 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (Obama Will Say 'War on Women' But Not 'War on ISIS)
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To: Mechanicos

Just douse yourself with blood and hold some luggage.


20 posted on 10/16/2014 7:10:00 AM PDT by Salamander (People will stare. Make it worth their while.)
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