NYDAILYNEWS.COM
By DAN FRIEDMAN and JAMES WARREN | OCT 27, 2014 AT 11:41 PM
Obama’s Ebola czar, Ron Klain, still out of sight-—”Saturday Night Live” skit mocked Obama and Klain.
Klain’s qualifications questioned; was his hiring was a political tactic in advance of crucial midterm elections.
The White House says Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain is working behind the scenes, but there’s still confusion over what he’s actually doing.
WASHINGTON — There was confusion Monday over the government’s response to the Ebola crisis — and mystery over what President Obama’s Ebola czar Ton Klain, was doing to address it.
As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said mandatory quarantines are not necessary for medical workers returning from West Africa, a U.S. Army general said that he and all his troops returning from Liberia would remain in isolation for 21 days.
......but Obama’s Ebola czar, longtime Democratic operative Ron Klain, remained out of sight.
“It’s a theater of the absurd. It’s laughable,” said Dr. Robert Murphy, director of the Center for Global Health at Northwestern University and a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering with much experience in Africa. He said the lack of a visible leader quarterbacking the Ebola effort, coupled with the scattered, decentralized realities of the American health care system, created a confounding muddle.
“What has changed since he started his job?” one reporter asked. “It appears as though this week there’s more confusion than there was last week.”
Earnest insisted Klain was “coordinating the government response,” but he did not directly answer whether the Ebola czar needed to do more to coordinate with state governments.
“I don’t think it fuels panic because I think people understand the facts,” Earnest said.
Earnest said Klain’s work — Klain’s been on the job 10 days — already produced “a significant number of announcements related to the whole-of-government approach that the President has ordered to dealing with the Ebola situation.”
But had Klain been in touch with Gov’s Cuomo or Christie amid their decisive but controversial actions mandating quarantines? Did the White House tell New York and New Jersey that it thought they’d gone too far?
There were no clear answers Monday, and this was nearly 48 hours after “Saturday Night Live” mocked Obama and Klain during an episode hosted by comedian Jim Carrey.
The comedy bit questioned Klain’s qualifications and whether his hiring was a political tactic in advance of crucial midterm elections.
“His principal responsibility is a behind-the-scenes role,” Earnest said. Klain’s workload, Earnest added, “limits the amount of time he has to make the case publicly” for the Obama administration.
With Klain out of sight, it was left to Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC, to issue new Ebola guidelines Monday, recommendations that stop short of the quarantines imposed by New York and New Jersey for medical workers who’ve treated Ebola patients overseas.
The new recommendations mark an effort to create a national standard.
Klain and Obama were criticized for their failure to show leadership.
Five things to know about Ron Klain, President Obama’s Ebola czar:
— He’s a former chief of staff to both former Veep Al Gore and current VP Biden.
— Kevin Spacey played Klain in the 2008 movie “Recount” depicting the Bush vs. Gore presidential election fight in 2000.
— Klain served as a debate prep aide for four Democratic presidential nominees: President Obama, President Bill Clinton, Gore and John Kerry.
— He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Byron White.
— The White House says Klain will stay out of the spotlight, and is instead working behind the scenes to coordinate the White House Ebola effort.