Republicans have taken great glee in turning the Ebola outbreak in the United States — six cases have been treated here so far, one patient has died — into an election issue this year. Blaming Pres. Obama for the outbreak fits neatly in their strategy of nationalizing the midterms by making the election about him, rather than about their party’s own lousy record in Congress.
The fact is, the Obama administration has acted rapidly and with keen efficiency in its handling of the Ebola outbreak when compared with the record of the handling of a similar outbreak in the early 1980s by the administration of GOP patron saint, Ronald Reagan.
For the first five years of his presidency, Reagan ignored the scourge of a deadly virus that was ravaging American society. In fact, by the time he first uttered the name of the disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) — “AIDS” — in 1985, 10,000 Americans had died. It took the intervention of a Hollywood star, Elizabeth Taylor, to persuade Reagan to address the crisis substantively. By the time he did, in 1987, the number of deaths had quadrupled, and while he claimed credit for a rise in federal spending on HIV research to $400 million, he duplicitously failed to mention that he’d fought to cut that spending in half.
The tone was set for the Reagan administration’s approach to the AIDS crisis at the first White House press briefing in which the subject came up. Here’s a partial transcript of the briefing on Oct. 15, 1982. As you read it, substitute Reagan’s press secretary Larry Speakes for Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, and “Ebola” for “AIDS” and imagine what the reaction might be:
Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
LARRY SPEAKES: What’s AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don’t.
SPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President—
SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
SPEAKES: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.
Q: Does the President, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
SPEAKES: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any—
Q: Nobody knows?
SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—
SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
Speakes and the White House press corps — the epitome of the media elite — would indulge in the 13 more gigglefests about the epidemic over the next couple of years.
The good news today, politically speaking, is that a new poll from CNN suggests normal Americans are not buying the Republican fear tactics on Ebola. According to the poll, 71 percent of Americans have confidence that the government can stop Ebola before it becomes a crisis in the United States.
The other 29 percent were probably going to vote for Republicans next week in any case.
The picture of Obama hugging the nurse who had just recovered from the ebola virus reminded me of the time when I was living in the UK and the fear of Aids was everywhere, people were shunning Aids patients and Princess Diana hugged a patient with Aids in a hospital, she did it to show that people were being unfair and scared without reason. I think Obama was doing the same thing and kudos to him.