Conservatives aren’t sure what to make of a single case of Ebola appearing on American shores last week. But they are quite certain that they can’t trust what President Barack Obama or any other liberal elites tell them or do about it.
The lines of thought range widely. Is the scientifically verified claim that Eloba cannot be transmitted through the air a “canard”? Is the government so inept that it can’t contain Ebola now that it’s here? Is Obama’s refusal to issue some kind of comprehensive travel ban for the African countries where the current Ebola epidemic started an indictment of liberal dreams of diversity and political correctness? These and more have made appearances on the right in recent days and weeks.
But the one common thread is that — one way or another — Obama and company have clearly done something wrong. Or they will.
Mike Huckabee: “I just don’t believe them anymore”
“I’m feeling a little sick myself. But it’s not Ebola. I’m just sick of a government that I’m paying for telling me not to worry and just trust them,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Saturday on his Fox News show, via Media Matters. “I wish I could, but if they repeatedly lie to me I just don’t believe them anymore.”
Gretchen Carlson: Benghazi–>IRS–>Secret Service–>Ebola
Fox News host Gretchen Carlson managed to wrap Ebola, the Secret Service scandal, the Veterans Affairs scandal, Obamacare, the IRS and Benghazi into one long string of questions on competence and safety on her Monday show:
Time now for my take. So, should we trust the government to keep us all safe from Ebola? With the government’s recent track record not being so hot, well, we learned we couldn’t trust the IRS, after the targeting of conservative groups. The Secret Service, after an armed man made his way into the White House. The VA, after reports men and women who served this country died waiting to get health care. We couldn’t trust the promise that Obamacare that we could keep our doctors that we wanted. And do we trust that we know all the answers yet about Benghazi? What more and more people seem to be asking about Ebola now isn’t that they’re necessarily scared about actually getting the disease, but that they’re scared the government agencies responsible with helping us if we do get sick might not be up to the task. So if Ebola becomes a bigger issue the question still remains, will we be safe?
Donald Trump: “Why would anybody trust our government to handle this crisis?”
Benghazi and Obamacare made yet another appearance in Donald Trump’s doubts, expressed on Fox and Friends, about the White House’s readiness to handle Ebola.
“I think very few people trust our government as being competent,” Trump said. “Let’s not kid ourselves. I mean with the five billion dollar website for Obamacare, which is still not working frankly and it’s a disaster. And so many other things: Benghazi, wars… IRS.”
“I mean we have virtually incompetent leadership,” he continued. “So why would anybody trust our government to handle this crisis? And to think that we’re allowing people from West Africa to come in, and many of them are unchecked, come in and potentially cause a tremendous problem.”
John Nolte: “The administration would cover this up”
Breitbart News’s John Nolte also invoked Benghazi and the Mexican border crisis to explain his distrust of the Obama administration on Ebola.
“In a situation where an Ebola outbreak could in some way hurt President Obama’s popularity numbers or agenda, do I believe the Obama Administration is morally corrupt to the point where they would put politics above the safety of the public?” he wrote in August. “I’d tell you to ask our Libyan ambassador and three other foreign services workers that question, but they’re all dead.”
“Were Ebola to creep over the Southern border in the form of an illegal immigrant, that could hurt this Administration’s push to legalize 11 million Democrats,” he continued. “There is no doubt in my mind, the Administration would cover this up for as long as it could.”
Gregg Jarrett: “Another canard upon which the White House relies”
In a Friday column, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett questioned why Obama hadn’t instituted a travel ban yet, while simultaneously calling into question the science that says Ebola can only be transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who is symptomatic. He referred to that as “another canard upon which the White House relies.”
“We are assured that Ebola is spread by direct contact with blood, mucus, saliva and other bodily fluids from an infected person,” Jarrett wrote. “As if that’s supposed to make us feel safer. We’re told it cannot be transmitted through the air. Seriously? Think about that.”
After all, Jarrett went on to explain, “any scientist will tell you that when someone coughs, microscopic droplets of saliva are projected from the mouth and into the air a distance of 7 to 12 feet. It is often invisible to the naked eye, but it can be inhaled by others and enter their respiratory tract or otherwise be ingested.”
Random Atlanta doctor quoted by conservative news outlets: “CDC Is Lying!”
A doctor in Atlanta who dressed up in a containment suit that said “CDC Is Lying!” on the back got write-ups in conservative conspiracy havens like The Blaze and World Net Daily (as well as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
“Once this disease consumes every third world country, as surely it will, because they lack the same basic infrastructure as Sierra Leone and Liberia, at that point, we will be importing clusters of Ebola on a daily basis,” the doctor, Gil Mobley, said. “That will overwhelm any advanced country’s ability to contain the clusters in isolation and quarantine. That spells bad news.”
Michelle Malkin: “Political correctness is a plague to us all”
And lastly, in one particularly impressive leap, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin used the Ebola crisis as her preferred catalyst for ending the State Department’s Diversity Visa program in an Friday op-ed for National Review Online.
You know who else will get in? Untold numbers of “diversity” petitioners from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other West African countries where the Ebola virus is epidemic. If you think the feds will ensure that foreign visa-seekers with communicable diseases stay out, think again. The State Department now allows applicants with HIV to apply and enter. Those who suffer from tuberculosis, leprosy, or other afflictions “of public health significance” can apply for waivers.
“Unfortunately, there is no antidote for our government’s blind and deadly diversity worship,” she concluded. “Political correctness is a plague on us all.”
Rush Limbaugh: “This is this political correctness crap”
Rush Limbaugh was on board with bashing the political correctness crowd and ripping the administration for not cutting off the Ebola-infested countries, too.
“Wait a second. ‘The impulse might be to isolate these countries.’ But he said that in a disapproving way. If we do that, if we isolate, see, this is this political correctness crap,” he said last week on his show. “It’s not fair that they are the ones that have Ebola. It would be unfair and it would be profiling and it would be stigmatizing if we told them that they have more Ebola than anybody else. So we can’t isolate these countries. If we do that, we’ll be increasing our own risk.
“How does that happen? How does isolating where it is and keeping it there make it worse for us? How does it increase our risk? It doesn’t,” he continued. “Folks, this is exactly the kind of drivel and nonsense that is being taught and has been for a long time.”
