Hart: Ebola 'cure' will be worse than disease

When it comes any issue, what is best for America is not what drives Obama. Even with Ebola, he is like the trendy new song, "I'm all about the base,

'bout the base, not the trouble."

As with any "crisis," President Obama and his 24/7 political machine do not "let a good crisis go to waste" without using it to create another government department so they can act like they know what they are doing.

Obama has appointed a political hack, lawyer Ron Klain, to be his Ebola "czar." Klain has no experience in medicine. He was chief of staff for both Al Gore and Sheriff Joe "Plugs" Biden, so you know he is smart. He has no health care experience, other than trying to stop Gore from drinking gravy all day and keeping sharp objects away from Biden.

He is neither a security nor a health care expert, nor is he a FEMA-type emergency manager. He is simply loyal to the president and will spin the Ebola crisis in Obama's political favor to make his boss seem less feckless. If Klain is any kind of doctor, he's a spin doctor.

No one is better than Obama at changing the narrative and declaring himself successful, aided by his sycophants in the media.

So far, about 4,550 people have died of Ebola, entirely (with the exception of Liberian citizen Thomas Duncan) in a region of the world with antiquated, socialized medicine. This is not a big issue for the USA -- yet. More people here have died from bee stings. We will survive this, as we have bird flu, swine flu, SARS, avian flu -- and too many boy bands to mention.

What is telling, however, is the inadequate response of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Obama. First, the CDC made this big proclamation, with such authority, that someone can only get the virus by direct exposure to an infected person's bodily fluids. They are probably wrong. The nurse in Dallas did not come into contact with her patient's bodily fluids. The truth is, we just do not know. Admitting you do not know something is not in the lexicon of government know-it-alls.

Fear has gripped Dallas. Most blamed homosexuality in Africa for spreading the disease. Yet, an African man brought it to the U.S., and almost all who have it in Africa are black. So if there is a bright spot here, it may be that Southerners seem to have moved beyond race since they are now blaming Ebola on gays.

In Obama's view, this is really more of a political problem. Americans are afraid because our leaders' responses are so disorganized. Even 225 workers who clean airplanes at LaGuardia Airport walked off the job for fear of contracting Ebola. They staged a sit-in after a CDC worker told a nurse with a mild fever that she could fly. After sitting inside the LaGuardia terminal for an hour, the striking workers preferred to go back to work, cleaning Ebola off seats, and take their chances.

I worry less about Ebola than I do the cost of the permanent programs Obama will put in place to ostensibly "save us" from it. Like the TSA and the Patriot Act, the lingering damage of a big-government solution is more costly than the event that sparked it. The legacy of harm Osama bin Laden left us is alive and well in the TSA and Homeland Security Department agencies that we currently fund -- and the freedoms we gave up in the process.

Even with ISIS advancing on Baghdad and Ebola allowed into America, Obama and his disciples keep telling us that global warming is our biggest threat. While marauding gangs of Islamic extremists are raping and beheading folks, or the nasty Ebola virus threatens to kill Americans, temperatures a quarter of a degree warmer really don't seem like much of a problem.

Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist. Email Ron@RonaldHart.com.

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