Tag Archives: Ron Klain

Ebola 'czar' gets expected criticism

Is there any better example of being “damned if you do, or don’t” than President Obama’s appointment of an Ebola “czar”?

Let’s meet Ronald Klain, who is the new manager of the government’s response to the Ebola situation. Klain is a trusted adviser to the president, a Mr. Fix-It sort of individual. He is known as a master government technician who knows how to make things work.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/obama-names-ebola-point-person-211624626.html

He’s not a medical professional. However, he comes into the game reportedly with a good deal of nuts-and-bolts know-how.

Republicans in Congress have been yapping about the president’s propensity for naming these “czars.” He’s got a czar for all kinds of things.

Yet … the GOP wanted him to name an Ebola czar because, they contend, the government’s response to this so-called “crisis” has been tepid, ineffective, milquetoast.

So then Obama puts Klain on the job.

GOP leaders now contend that Klain is the wrong person for the job. I haven’t yet heard who they think is the right person, or even how they would describe that individual.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/politics/ebola-czar-gop-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

I’m not at all certain the president even needed to appoint a czar to do this job.

A surgeon general would have been an appropriate person to lead the nation’s response to this matter, but Republicans have blocked the naming of that individual for reasons that have nothing to do with his or her medical qualifications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is run by someone who’s qualified to coordinate the effort; but Dr. Thomas Frieden has been criticized — again, by Republicans mostly — his own agency’s failure to manage this “crisis.”

The president is damned yet again for doing what his critics have demanded he do.