Posted on 12/07/2014 3:17:52 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The height of the Ebola outbreak in Africa, Europe, and the United States also coincided with a period in which the Obama administration came under the heaviest scrutiny over its response to that health crisis. Amid criticism, President Barack Obama rejected calls from lawmakers to impose some travel restrictions on the areas affected by Ebola, but he did say his administration was open to appointing one figure to oversee his government’s response to the crisis.
Days later, Obama appointed Ron Klain, a long-time Democratic political operative and veteran of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s presidential campaigns, to serve as the principal figure ensuring that Ebola did not spread any further into the United States.
But Klain’s experience as a partisan political operator with experience handling crisis communications for national campaigns led some critics to believe the Obama administration’s priority for their new Ebola Czar was to manage the bad press they were receiving.
“The president again, wanted somebody who could serve in a coordinating function to manage the implementation of our whole government approach to our Ebola situation,” White House Press Sec. Josh Earnest told CNN’s Jim Acosta in October when asked what Klain’s qualifications for his new position were. “I guess, to more directly address your question, what we were looking for was not an Ebola expert, but rather an implementation expert.”
While the spread of Ebola into the United States has largely been checked in recent weeks, the disease continues to ravage West Africa. In Liberia, where 2,400 American troops are stationed with the task of preventing the outbreak’s further spread, the number of new reported Ebola cases has steadied. That is not the case in places like Sierra Leone, where the number of new cases being reported is accelerating, and medical professionals continue to succumb to the infection.
“The number of people infected with Ebola has passed, 17,000, according to data published Tuesday by the World Health Organization,” ABC News recently reported. “Of those, more than 6,000 have died.”
With this news in mind, the announcement that Ron Klain will soon give up his position as “Ebola Response Coordinator” in order to return to the private sector early next year becomes far less explicable.
Klain has committed to former AOL chief Steve Case that by March 1, he’ll be back on the job as president of Case Holdings and general counsel for Case’s venture firm Revolution LLC, Case tells Fortune. An administration official confirmed the plan.
“He has no intention of staying on in any other capacity here at the White House,” the administration official said. “Ron will do the job for which he was appointed and return to Revolution.”
Case told Fortune reporters that Klain “was not eager to take on this assignment but felt it was an important thing to do.”
“He agreed to do it with the understanding that it would be for a limited period of time,” Case added.
A fair assessment of the work Klain and the emergency personnel and federal planners he managed must concede that they did not fail in preventing Ebola’s further spread inside the United States. To the extent that their work was responsible for isolating the deadly hemorrhagic fever in Africa, they are to be commended.
Is it wise, however, to assume that Klain’s services will no longer be needed by March and that, presumably, the threat of this outbreak will have been neutralized? There are only a few indications that the infection’s spread is decelerating overseas? If Klain’s position already has an expiration date, but the plague’s spread has not been arrested at its source, it would seem to confirm that his appointment was primarily a political maneuver.
his appointment was primarily a political maneuver.
Any thing Obama does IS political.
And he has yet to visit any ebola victims in Africa!
Not even one.
What good was that? Paid for being good for nothing.
It is far more important to check the spread in Liberia than Sierra Leone, if only because of the number of freight ships registered in Monrovia.
Is Ebola contained and the number of new Cases in west Africa in a decline?
He’s leaving before the House and Senate investigations can ramp up...
Wonder how much money we gave him.
That was my thought...
Barak: Look, I need a ebola czar for about six months
then you’re out with a golden parachute...wadda ya say?
He’s doing his job very well. Haven’t heard a peep about ebola from the press in a couple of months.
WHO has said more than 10,000 and possibly 13500+ last week were correct numbers that have had Ebola, and now Sierra Leone is in panic mode, while Liberia seems more stable. Deaths are in flux and numbers I heard not consistent.
WOW now 17,0000 that means 4000 new numbers in a week or so, or did they not have those numbers correct?? I think WHO is unsure of the numbers.
And in about 18 months, it will leak out that he “earned” $4,000,000 for his valuable services as Ebola Czar.
Mission Accomplished!
He was appointed for one reason only: to stop the media uproar over ebola that might diminish Demo chances in the recent election. That job is now done (very effectively, too, I must say — the MSM fell into the Administration’s line quickly and obediently) so now he’s off to other political mischief.
It was like a miracle occurred.
Ebola continues it’s deadly trek, yet the US media stopped all Ebola reporting.
That Ron Klain guy has some real intimidating juice
He sacrificed 3,000 troops..... what more is expected?
so what?
As usual all talk, nothing on the line.
Patton, Old Blood and Guts, the saying was his guts and our blood.
0bama and his minions have no viscera.
Just BS.
Which is exactly what he did, and brilliantly. The day after he was appointed, every news outlet in America, if not the world, stopped reporting on Ebola. Someone should give him a raise.
Meanwhile, the public is woefully unaware, misinformed -- actually disinformed-- of the dangers of Ebola. But what are a few lives when you have bright shiny political subterfuge to protect?
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