Im-Politic: The Latest Trump CCP Virus Fake News

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Beth Cameron, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, ebola, Im-Politic, National Security Council, NSC, Obama administration, pandemic, Politico, Tim Morrison, TIME, Trump, Washington Post, WHO, World Health Organization, Wuhan virus

I’m getting sick and tired of debunking Mainstream Media myths spread about the Trump administration’s failures in dealing with the CCP Virus (as I have now taken to calling it, in honor of the Chinese Communist Party regime’s role in covering it up and thereby preventing timely responses all over the world). And maybe you’re getting sick and tired of reading them.

All the same, the attacks keep coming, and three in particular that have appeared in the last week – which happen to be closely related to each other – are screaming out for pushback.

Off the bat, though, some essential context: As I’ve tweeted repeatedly, I agree that the President’s anti-Wuhan Virus (another monicker I’ve been using) policy has been flawed. Chiefly, Mr. Trump does deserve criticism for claiming until recently that everything’s under control – although I can’t help but continuing to note that the World Health Organization (WHO) didn’t declare the situation to be a global pandemic until March 11. That’s a grand total of nine days ago.

In addition, testing of course took off way too slowly. I strongly suspect that this stemmed from outmoded guidelines and manufacturing processes at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that predated the Trump inauguration. But the buck in the U.S. government ultimately and rightly stops on the President’s desk, and a Chief Executive who’s described himself as a Can-do-type disrupter should have stopped the agency’s business-as-usual approach faster.

As for the broadsides with much less, if any, merit? The first concerns the claim that the administration foolishly abolished the National Security Council (NSC) office that it inherited from the Obama administration that focused on protecting the country from pandemics. This allegation, first made by that office’s first director, has been (to put it charitably) exposed as misleading by one of her NSC successors, Tim Morrison.

He’s explained that the office’s responsibilities were merged into a new office that looked at pandemics more holistically, because they’re closely related to challenges like those posed by weapons of mass destruction generally. And Morrison has contended – credibly – that thanks to various preparations made by this reorganized NSC, an Ebola outbreak was quashed quickly.

To be sure, as I’ve pointed out, the emergence of diseases in regions like Central Africa, which have scant connections with the global economy, and in places like China, which have extensive connections, pose dramatically different challenges. And I continue to think, as argued, that bureaucratic reforms involving such tiny government agencies are game-changers in real-world terms. But you’d think that the initial accuser, Beth Cameron, might consider apologizing. And that the Washington Post would acknowledge a huge fact-checking failure (though it did run the rejoinder).

What’s even less well known – and has gone even more scantily reported than the Morrison observations – is that Mr. Trump’s predecessors approved decisions that actually do look like genuine pandemic defense downgrades. According to this TIME magazine post:

“The Trump Administration has become the third White House in a row to downgrade or eliminate the senior White House personnel tasked with tracking disease and bioterrorism threats, according to Kenneth Bernard, a retired Rear Admiral and physician, who served as a special assistant to the president for security and health during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.”

TIME continues:

Bernard “served in the top role in the Clinton National Security Council, only to be ignored by the incoming George W. Bush Administration, which eliminated his special advisor position.

“But after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington spurred fears Al-Qaeda would follow up with a bioweapons attack, and the anthrax attacks of 2001, the Bush Administration re-established the office, bringing Bernard back to serve as the first former Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense, as a subset of the White House’s Homeland Security Council (HSC), which later helped combat outbreaks of SARS and the Avian Influenza.”

And as for the Obama record:

“Under Obama’s NSC, Bernard says the office was downgraded again, until the 2014 Ebola crisis emerged, and President Barack Obama appointed ‘Ebola Czar’ Ron Klain. National Security Advisor Susan Rice later institutionalized the office in 2015, calling it the Directorate for Global Health and Security and Biodefense.”

Not exactly a model of foresight.

The next two myths were propagated (and weirdly invalidated at the same time) by this supposed Politico scoop about a transition-period Obama administration warning to the incoming Trump administration to ramp up for an inevitable big-time pandemic. The thrust of the article, written by Nahal Toosi, Daniel Lippman, and Dan Diamond, is that outgoing Obama officials held a briefing with soon-to-be Trump counterparts on the potential dangers of the kind of bio-threat being faced by the nation right now, and that the Trump-ers were decidedly uninterested.

The allegedly clear implication, as the article quoted former national security advisor Susan E. Rice as recently writing: “Rather than heed the warnings, embrace the planning and preserve the structures and budgets that had been bequeathed to him, the president ignored the risk of a pandemic.”

As noted above, the structures and budgets point is bogus. But so is the warnings point. And we know this in part because, as Politico stated (in paragraph 18), “None of the sources argued that one meeting three years ago could have dramatically altered events today.”

Also important to note: The authors presented documents presented at the meeting, and they make clear the phoniness of both the charge that Trump officials were (uniquely) caught flat-footed by CCP Virus testing requirements, and that the leadership vacuum they’ve created has given the states no choice but to fill a gap that’s not their responsibility.

Except the documents say absolutely nothing about boosting testing capabilities or modifying CDC guidelines. And they specify that “State and local governments lead public health response,” especially when it comes to “hospital preparedness and response.”

Recent news reports have created some optimism that effective anti-CCP Virus medicines may be developed sooner than initially expected.  Too bad there’s no reason to think that another serious malady – Trump Derangement Syndrome – will soon come under control.

Im-Politic: The Public is Out-Thinking the Chattering Class on Ebola, Too

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chattering class, competence, ebola, Im-Politic, Obama, public opinion, travel ban

I wasn’t planning to post anything about ebola today, but some new polling data strongly indicates how misleading — and self-serving — the conventional wisdom pushed by the Mainstream Media can be.

As you know if you follow me on Twitter (hint! @AlanTonelson!), I report each day on the data put out by the Gallup poll every day tracking President Obama’s popularity. Such very short-term fluctuations don’t matter much, but monitoring them this closely can sensitize you to important developments.  Today’s numbers prompted me to examine how the president’s job approval ratings have changed since concerns about ebola broke out in earnest. And here’s the stunning answer: Not much!

On September 29, according to Gallup, the day before the Centers for Disease Control confirmed that a patient diagnosed with ebola was in America (the late Thomas Eric Duncan), Mr. Obama’s job approval stood at 43 percent. (This number is actually the three-day rolling average between September 27 and September 29.) His disapproval stood at 52 percent.

The latest figures (for October 25-27)? The president’s job approval is 42 percent, and those disapproving represented 53 percent of the sample. In other words, virtually no net change.

The numbers moved somewhat against Mr. Obama earlier this month. His worst three-day period was October 8-10. Perhaps not coincidentally, Duncan died on the eighth. But the Obama approval rating fell only to 39 percent, and the disapproval rating rose to 57 percent. That latter number set a new record for this gauge during Mr. Obama’s presidency, but only by one percentage point. The approval number was one point above the all-time low.

So it may be that the government’s handling of the ebola threat has greatly worsened Americans’ confidence in Washington (although as recent Gallup and CNN readings show, they’re still pretty confident in the feds’ ability to handle the disease itself). It’s also noteworthy that the number of ebola-related ads run by national political candidates this election year have jumped significantly. But even though many observers believe that the vote will be in large measure a referendum on the president’s policies, Mr. Obama’s reputation for confidence has barely been affected.

At the same time, more than three quarters of those surveyed for National Public Radio about a week ago support an ebola travel ban.

So it seems clear that, despite the claims of many on the Right, the nation still believes its government can protect them from this clearly serious threat. And despite the claims of many on the Left, it seems equally obvious that strong popular backing for a travel ban does not spring from outright and unreasoning ebola panic. The public’s apparent focus? An eminently sensible demand that their leaders err on the side of caution to protection health – and lives. Now if only some of this prudence and pragmatism could find its way into the various wings of the chattering class.’

Im-Politic: Why the Mainstream Media is an Ebola Lapdog, Not a Watchdog

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ebola, globalization, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, Obama, Open Borders, political correctness, travel ban

Although I’m neither a doctor nor a biologist nor a public health expert, I keep writing on Obama administration’s response to the ebola outbreak. For the president’s continued opposition to a travel ban to fight the disease speaks volumes about the political and governing establishments’ devotion to dogma about the virtues of completely Open Borders, economic globalization, and political correctness, and about the evils of any kind of nationalism, at the expense of public safety. I return to the subject today to deal with another angle – the mainstream media’s (MSM) role in upholding this establishment line.

No doubt many of you have already come up with reasons why: e.g., the reflexive internationalism and political liberalism of the MSM, along with its close social ties with these ruling elites – ties which have only intensified as journalists, public officials, and other political figures increasingly move back and forth among these occupations.

But recent commentaries have revealed another source of the MSM’s determination to banish support for an anti-ebola travel ban from the realm of respectable opinion: an uncritical worship of credentialed expertise.

At first blush, this claim sounds absurd. Doesn’t the MSM make its living by exposing official wrongdoing and ineptitude, as well as pretensions of public spiritedness, competence, and omniscience? Isn’t skepticism about authority practically the sine qua non of the journalistic personality, and of any reporting worth its salt?

Yes and No – but arguably for the most part No. There’s the aforementioned blurring of occupational lines reflecting the MSM’s growing tendency to come from the same backgrounds of affluence and elite schools as members of other sectors of the American establishment. As a result, they inevitably tend to marry one another, live in the same neighborhoods or the same kinds of neighborhoods, and/move in the same overlapping professional and social circles. Thus it’s not surprising that they share many of the same social and cultural norms and perspectives, even though their party politics often differs.

One natural result is the MSM’s strong support of the most important elements of the status quo – the existing structures, systems, and values that organize society, politics, and the economy, and give them purpose. And one of the most popular values (or myths – take your pick) in the United States entails the existence and superiority of a meritocracy.

Of course, the privileged lives led by most of the MSM powerfully incline its members toward meritocratism. A more conveniently self-serving way to explain its evident success – which consists not only of wealth but prominence and influence – is hard to imagine. Why, then, shouldn’t the MSM assume the same excellence in those anointed as experts by society in other fields of endeavor? Even those that are not personal friends neighbors of MSM members have passed the same test and been vetted by the same kinds of institutions.

In fact – and here I’m revealing one of its dirtiest, most important secrets – the MSM is even more inclined even than other successful Americans to lionize credentials in other occupations and especially professions. The reason? Despite the degrees conferred by schools of journalism, the professional-like societies they have created, and the multitude of awards they hand out to each other, journalists generally recognize, at least subconsciously, that theirs is not a genuine profession. Excelling requires the mastery of no body of technical knowledge – at least none that can’t be achieved in literally 15 minutes, like the standard form for writing a hard news story.

Hence the MSM’s built-in respect for those whose titles do require long years of study of famously complicated subjects, like the workings of the human body or centuries-old, constantly growing masses of statutes and jurisprudence. But it’s important to note the MSM’s inordinate regard for other pseudo-professions as well (like “public affairs”) and for pseudo-sciences (like economics).

Not that the MSM is incapable of skepticism. But the record seems to show that it usually reaches critical mass only after a group of experts has brought on disaster. Thus very few MSM members questioned the conventional wisdom among national security experts that a light was visible at the end of the Vietnam tunnel, or economists who insisted that the unprecedented indebtedness of American households and the equally unprecedented surge in home prices were signs that This Time It Was Different, not that dangerous bubbles were inflating. In other words, the MSM watchdog too often barks only after the break-in has succeeded.

Indeed, although skepticism skyrockets for a time after disaster strikes, MSM idolatry of expertise is so strong that, once the rubble clearing begins, reporters and commentators as a rule return to relying overwhelmingly on these proven failures as sources of information and analysis.

Thankfully, the United States so far has escaped an ebola disaster – so the MSM has energetically denounced anyone dissenting from the judgment of physicians and public health officials that a ban on visitors from West African hot zone countries would be not only ineffective, but counterproductive. Typical has been this lead from NBC News: “There are reasons the U.S. hasn’t enacted a travel ban on countries where Ebola has broken out: It wouldn’t work and could actually make things worse, health officials say. Still, that’s done little to quell the calls for a ban.”

And this lead from Politico: “The political momentum for a travel ban on West African nations continued to swell Thursday, but health and transportation experts were uniform in saying it wouldn’t stem the spread of Ebola — and could do more harm than good. That hasn’t stopped politicians and pundits — ranging from House Speaker John Boehner to former Obama press secretary Jay Carney— from calling for a travel ban.” And this headline from HuffingtonPost: Lawmakers Ignore Experts, Push For Ebola Travel Ban.”

Indeed, so strong is the MSM’s expertise worship that it’s even overcome Ana Marie Cox, a Daily Beast contributor who first gained fame through reporting on a sex scandal that titillating the publicly prurient Washington, D.C. branch of the chattering class. This proudly sauciest of wenches sternly admonished viewers of Fox News’ Media Buzz program, “There is an empirical answer to that question – there is an empirical, scientific answer as to what we should do to prevent the spread of ebola. If you have an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ after your name, you should not be talking about this. If you have an ‘MD’ after your name, you should be talking about this.”

Apparently Cox has never heard of a doctor blowing a diagnosis. Or of practitioners of the far softer art of “public health” mishandling an epidemic. Which perhaps points to additional problems with the MSM’s deference to authority: First, nothing could be clearer in recent weeks than the fallibility of so-called medical experts leading the fight against ebola. Whether neglecting the virus’ latest outbreak in West Africa or creating “protocols” for treatment that were in some cases not only flawed but fatally flawed, the experts themselves have acknowledged the kinds of mistakes that haven’t induced much humility on their part, but that rightly have cost them the confidence of many Americans.

Second, the ebola consensus in the healthcare community is not nearly as solid as the MSM typically suggests. Support for a travel ban is anything but nonexistent, and some researchers have even cautioned that knowledge about ebola’s transmission mechanisms could be substantially incomplete. Put differently, the science surrounding a disease discovered 40 years ago is anything but “settled.”

Combine the MSM’s pro-credentialed-expertise instincts with its clear political leanings on globalization- and political correctness-related issues and you have the scandal that constitutes its ebola travel ban coverage. Thanks to the emergence of alternative media, the public interest is increasingly likely to survive this dereliction of duty. But its declining audiences and worsening financial fortunes indicate that may not be true for the MSM.

Im-Politic: Obama’s Dangerous Allergy to an Ebola Travel Ban

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CDC, ebola, Im-Politic, Obama, travel ban, West Africa

One again, the Washington, D.C. talk show-verse has performed a major public service – not by exposing serious governing wrongdoing or even seriously questioning the typically outrageous spin public officials try to put on their decisions or event, but by simply parroting that spin and at least (often unwittingly) helping vigilant citizens play a watchdog role.

In this case, the vital information was provided by the reliably establishmentarian Washington Week, and specifically by Alexis Simendinger. Discussing the Obama administration’s response to the ebola outbreak, the White House correspondent for the RealClearPolitics website made clear that the Obama administration’s strategy has prioritized not taking all reasonable steps to protect the American people, but keeping U.S. borders open to travelers from disease-stricken West Africa.

According to Simendinger, the only reason the president agreed to any airport screening of airline passengers from that region (measures that were also opposed by the World Health Organization) was to defuse pressure “from Congress and elsewhere” for “rolling the drawbidges up, to put the travel ban in place.”

That slight arch you could see Simendinger’s eyebrows taking while she made the point strongly suggests she’s all in with viewing travel ban supporters as yahoos. Certainly she gave no indication of disapproving the president’s preoccupation with PR. But her account nonetheless has shown the American people how ideology, not prudence, is driving government decisions that could affect their very lives.

If you still doubt how inexcusable this politically correct approach is, check out this new Washington Post account of screening procedures and their inherent shortcomings, and of travel statistics.

The Post report reminded readers once again that ebola’s presence can’t be detected by modern medicine until symptoms begin to appear. The 21-day incubation period means that a victim can harbor the disease for three weeks before its presence is discovered. So once out of a U.S. airport, West African visitors are able to travel unrestricted around the United States for nearly a month. It’s true that, based on current knowledge, ebola can only be transmitted once symptoms appear. But “appearance” can easily come on gradually, creating the risk of infections during this travel before the carrier seeks medical help.

The U.S. government is trying to deal with this issue through mandatory screenings of any inbound passengers from the three countries most heavily affected – Guinea , Liberia, and Sierra Leone – even if they are not displaying symptoms. But of course, if they are not symptomatic, then it’s entirely likely that in many cases, their infection will not be detected. As a safeguard, the Centers for Disease Control will require all such passengers to fill out questionnaires asking whether they have (knowingly) been in contact with ebola victims. Assuming they tell the truth (unlike the now-deceased victim from Liberia), and assuming they have any incentive whatever to tell the truth (and where do you think the best treatment will be given – West Africa? Or the United States?), it’s still anything but clear how American officials will be able to tell whether these travelers have had contact with ebola-infected surfaces.

What is making zero impression on President Obama or on his supporters on this issue is that these uncertainties, and all of the costs of domestic screening, can be completely eliminated with a travel ban. By refusing to admit anyone holding a passport from one of the affected countries – and arguably other African countries where the disease has been spotted recently – and anyone who has visited these countries recently, virtually all of the ebola threat can be kept safely away from American territory, and from the American people.

Moreover, the Post article demonstrates that the effect on global travel will be minimal. Only about 150 passengers from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone total arrive each day at the five U.S. airports where screening operations have been set up — because they receive 94 percent of the visitors from those countries. Extending the travel ban to other affected African countries would add only slightly to these totals. As I’ve written, inconvenience for travelers can be further reduced by giving those who have visited these countries recently, but who don’t hold their passports, a short grace period before extending the ban to this group.

Because deception can never always be caught, and because procedures put in place by human beings will never work perfectly, ebola could still arrive in the United States. The U.S. southern border’s porosity remains a threat as well. But there can be no question that the above travel ban would dramatically reduce the odds.

The preamble to the Constitution specifies that two prime duties of the U.S. government are to “provide for the common defense” and to “promote the general Welfare.” A president who won’t ban travelers from West Africa from entering the United States, and possibly spreading a deadly virus, is a president guilty of the worst form of on-the-job negligence,

Im-Politic: An Open Borders Approach to Ebola

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ebola, globalization, Im-Politic, Immigration, Open Borders

As if it isn’t bad enough that the Obama administration and the Open Borders crowd are largely indifferent to the threat of ISIS terrorists attacking the American homeland, evidence is now building that their (largely concealed) biases are preventing moves that could greatly reduce the odds of a serious ebola outbreak in the United States.

Last month, we learned that while the administration was considering major escalation of its anti-ISIS military campaign in the Middle East, it was acting pretty blasé re the possibility of terrorists penetrating porous U.S. borders and eventually restaging something like 9-11. A senior Department of Homeland Security official told a Senate hearing that ISIS adherents around the world were discussing on social media the possibility of crossing in from Mexico, but claimed rather audaciously that he was “satisfied we have the intelligence and capability on the border that would prevent that activity.”

At a House hearing, a Customs and Border Patrol official stated that “The number of known watch-listed persons we are encountering on the Southwest border is minimal compared to commercial aviation.” Which of course raises the questions of how many are being “encountered” on airplanes, how many aren’t being encountered, and what the definition of “minimal” is.

Now the nation is nearing from the Obama administration, along with other health specialists, sealing U.S. borders to keep out West African ebola victims would be counterproductive. What Americans haven’t heard are credible reasons why.

For example, despite all the claims that ebola’s transmission mechanisms make such measures unnecessary, great unknowns remain. Airborne transmission by certain strains has been detected among animals. And although human-to-human airborne transmission has not yet been reported, viruses – including ebola – have repeatedly shown the ability to mutate in unpredictable ways.

It is true that only two U.S. airlines still offer nonstop, direct flights between America and the affected countries, and that many residents of West Africa can arrive in the United States from many other airlines flying in from all over the world. But that doesn’t mean that passengers holding passports from the affected countries can’t – and shouldn’t – be banned until the ebola situation is under control.

And if we’re worried about other passport holders who have recently visited West Africa flying into the United States, Washington should announce that, starting on Date X, everyone whose passport has been stamped by a West African passport authority within the last year will be denied access to the United States as well. That way, inconvenience – in terms of disrupted business or personal travel plans — would be minimized, and travelers all over the world would be deterred from going to West Africa and risking contamination.

Moreover, airlines from other countries, including British Airways, are already restricting some travel. Their cooperation would make the U.S. effort all the more effective, and American leadership could galvanize further international action. Indeed, the administration’s unwillingness to restrict travel coming into the United States is all the more puzzling given that the State Department has warned Americans against non-essential travel to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

As for the argument that such travel bans would prevent needed aid from reaching the ebola countries, nothing could be sillier. The needed medical and other personnel obviously would be flying to West Africa on easily tracked official or chartered flights, and their movements and contacts in West Africa would be just as easily tracked.

That’s why it’s hard to avoid concluding that ideology is at work here. Two varieties look especially prominent lately. The first holds that curbing any form of international interaction – even temporarily – is culturally and politically retrograde, and would send dangerous signals suggesting that sometimes, some forms of globalization and international integration can be harmful. Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon has already impressively made the case that out-of-control cosmopolitanism (Aka Open Borders support) explains much of the blithe confidence displayed by the U.S. government re ebola.

The second strand of ideology condemns many ebola concerns as “fear-mongering” that lies “squarely in the center of a long and ugly tradition of treating…the African continent as a dirty, diseased place to be feared,” and is being used to unjustifiably fan anti-immigrant sentiment. The problem, though, is that globalization does entail costs and risks as well as benefits, and that sub-Saharan Africa does present some major and unique dangers to American well-being that must not simply be wished away.

I have lost all hope that the American business establishment would ever put the nation’s security ahead of its determination to maximize profits through the greatest degree of global commerce possible. I retain some hope, though, that the U.S. government and the chattering classes with which it reigns politically and intellectually are not completely dominated by baby-boomers and the like who have never outgrown the ‘60s. I wonder how long Washington will take to show that some genuine adults are pulling at least some of the strings by barring entry from ebola-wracked West Africa into the United States.