The Puzzle

If there’s one thing that baffles me about the present discourse on Ebola, it’s the effort to paint it as a partisan issue. Democrats are complaining that Republicans are turning Ebola into a partisan political issue even as they mendaciously claim that were it not for Republicans we’d be in a much better position for dealing with it.

In that light I’d appreciate an explanation of President Obama’s appointment of Democratic Party apparatchik Ron Klain as matrix manager for Ebola. I think that the complaints of some, including the editors of the Wall Street Journal, that he doesn’t have medical expertise is completely nonsensical. However, I think complaints that he’s neither a general nor even a manager are legitimate.

To the best of my ability to determine Mr. Klain is a lawyer and Democratic party apparatchik full stop. Should we interpret that as the president’s believing that the problems posed by Ebola are purely political?

Update

Ron Fournier’s take bolsters mine:

The choice makes sense if Obama’s main concern is a) the incompetence of his team, or; b) midterm politics. My strong hunch is it’s “b”. The Obama White House is not self-aware. It is nakedly political. The uneven response to Ebola threatens to be a toxic issue for Democrats, and the president is under pressure from his party’s desperate candidates to do something.

The problem with the White House strategy in my view is that the situation is not purely political, especially now that we’re talking about having 4,000 soldiers in the Ebola “hot zone”.

10 comments… add one
  • Here’s some Drew-bait from an article in the NYT this morning:

    “Part of the challenge is to be assertive, to be in command, and yet not feed a kind of panic that could easily evolve here,” said David Axelrod, a close adviser to the president in his first term. “It’s not enough to doggedly and persistently push for answers in meetings. You have to be seen doggedly and persistently pushing for answers.”

    It doesn’t really get better than that, either. According to that article Obama is royally kissed at the CDC’s poor performance. Strange how some of their complaints echo those elsewhere.

  • As Jean Giraudoux said, if you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made.

  • I prefer the song in Bye Bye Birdie to make that point. But then I like thinking about Ann Margaret….

  • Guarneri Link

    Tsk. Tsk, Dave. Off to re- education camp for you. Go over to OTB and Clavin, Michael and anjin- San will cleanse you of your ignorance.

  • Guarneri Link

    I don’t think the criticism that this chaps lacks medical experience is nonsensical ( I’m reminded of a quip when an Illinois Tool Works guy was named as head of Solomon bros – ” I’ve always said we need a good tool and die man around here.”). It’s just not a deal,breaker.

    But I too am aghast that a party hack rather than a real executive is placed into a serious slot in a legitimate crisis situation. And to put gas on the fire, Mr Cut-Through-The-Bureaucracy reports not to the President, but Ms It-Was-A-Video?

    If I didn’t know any better I’d say this is all about politics in their minds, and a certain upcoming election. Tried to tell you guys about this guy………

  • steve Link

    Of course this is political. If you have not seen it, go look at Shep Smith’s critique. Look at how much our media has played it up compared with the rest of the world. Instead of interviews and articles by the people who understand the disease, we get opinion pieces by pundits and politicians.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chart-ebola-coverage-united-states

    That said, I think the idea of a czar is kind of stupid. If you have to have one (for 3 cases?) it should have been someone with broad leadership experience dealing with multiple government agencies. Not a general as some have suggested, but maybe an ex-governor or cabinet member.

    Steve

  • I don’t think the criticism that this chaps lacks medical experience is nonsensical ( I’m reminded of a quip when an Illinois Tool Works guy was named as head of Solomon bros – ” I’ve always said we need a good tool and die man around here.”). It’s just not a deal,breaker.

    You’re right. What I wrote was an exaggeration. I like your diction better. What’s nonsensical is claiming that the lack of healthcare experience is a deal-breaker.

    Not a general as some have suggested

    There are several reasonable rationales for having a general. One of them is that we’ve got troops dealing with the problem in West Africa and the president is mobilizing the National Guard to get into the act there. That means that dealing with the military will be one of the components of the job.

    Another is that general actually get trained in leadership and are experienced managers as well as politicians. The reason that a general may not be such a good idea is that, depending on the general, he or she may overestimate her or his influence and latitude.

    My gripe, BTW, is not that it’s viewed as a political matter. It’s that it’s being viewed solely as a political matter at least until after the November elections. Basically, I think this guy’s job is to tamp down the fires until after the election.

  • TastyBits Link

    I do not think that a military General would work well as the head of a bureaucracy, but I could be wrong. As a grunt, it would seem that there would be a lack of adherence to a chain of command if it existed, but maybe, the Pentagon guys know how to navigate the system.

    My first order would that Thomas Frieden drop and give me 20.

    push ups, now sit-ups, now push ups, now sit ups … (It’s a Marine thing. You wouldn’t understand.)

  • jan Link

    I don’t know much about Ron Klein except that his resume seems to be handling political crises — hanging chads, the Solyndra snafus, and let’s not forget the contentious economic stimulus, whose success is predicated more on one’s ideological stance. I don’t know, though, if his bureaucratic skills are adequate to meet the needs of the current Ebola hysteria.

    For one thing he has to bring with him credentialed public respect, for overseeing prior problems to their conclusion with balance and bipartisanship, for people to trust and believe what he has to say. How can someone seen as simply a ‘political hack’ do this?

    Secondarily, Klein’s role is not directly involving the President. Instead, he has the usual intermediaries, such as Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett and others in the WH bubble, who are the superiors he must answer to first. This was a frustration Penetta voiced, in that he didn’t feel he had enough personal access to the President, which diluted his own advisory capacity as SOD.

    Basically, so much of Obama’s world is funneled though the powerful perspective of the same old crew of self-selected cronies, rather than to a diverse, interchangeable menu of military, business, medical, administrative minds who are the best in their given fields of expertise. Maybe that’s why he has been off-base and seen more as a feckless rather than as a fundamentally good leader.

  • jan Link

    Andrew McCarthy explains how incompetence meets mendacity in this National Review article.

    Two concerns are cited sounding the alarm over Ebola:

    One is incompetence. Lulled into ever more dependence on government by the metastasis of regulation in what used to be the realm of private action, Americans are shaken by Washington’s inability to function. It is bungling elementary tasks. There is a sense of unraveling, a sense that officials are not merely out of their depth in addressing problems but incapable of spotting the problems in the first place — or, even worse, responsible for creating the very problems that then explode into crises.

    Intimately related is the other concern: dishonesty. People expect politicians to spin and, at times, to out-and-out lie. I’ve been contending for a while now that our politics are no longer rational but tribal. Being right is secondary to being on the “right” side, as that side is perceived by the popular culture. That culture has largely tuned out the news and is swayed more by character assassination than by linear, fact-based argument. Official dishonesty is the natural result. When it is more important that “our side” wins than that the sensible thing be done, it is to be expected that the partisans, especially those in power, will say whatever they need to say to get through the news cycle. After all, fewer people than ever care about the news part of the news cycle; they care about the drama and their sympathies will be with their heroes — the fibs told to escape the latest jam are more admired for craftiness than condemned as breaches of trust.

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