Bob Franken

Oct 30, 20140

Here’s a concept: Let’s come up with an idea that would make things worse even if it worked, which it wouldn’t.

That would describe the proposal to prevent all people coming from the three West African nations devastated by Ebola — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — from entering the United States.

The U.S., it seems, is also ravaged by a growing disproportionate hysteria about Ebola, and most of all by cynical politicians, largely conservatives, who are exploiting the alarm for a chance to score some points against the Democratic president in the days leading up to the election.

They’re trying to capitalize on an impression that he is dithering as this killer illness threatens public safety here in the homeland. Now they’ve even been joined by some craven Dems, like North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, who is in a close race and has reversed her position that a travel ban would be a bad idea, folding under the pressure of her voters seeking a simple solution to their fears.

As I said, it won’t work. Someone who really wants to get to the U.S. easily can exploit porous borders and huge accountability gaps in our travel system.

If we actually did erect such a travel barrier, maybe we should include a blockade of Texas, since all the cases here have erupted in Dallas. And since one of the nurses who caught it subsequently flew Frontier Airlines from Dallas to Cleveland and back, perhaps we should add Ohio. For that matter, maybe we ought to ground Frontier while we’re at it, in spite of its very public sterilization of the affected plane.

Was that a cheap shot? Yes, it was, I’ll admit it, but so is the calculated way that politicians are using their simple-minded scare tactics. Add to this arson the cable-news networks that are fanning the flames in their amoral pursuit of ratings, and people don’t know what to think. So they don’t.

There are some things that can be done. First of all, let’s realize that as national dangers go, Ebola is very low on the list. What has so exacerbated the panic is the inept public-communications effort from our medical leaders. Each time their reflexive assurances that this is no big deal prove to be false, they end up scaring the daylights out of everyone.

Barack Obama could use a little help with that himself. After critics charged him with floundering around still again, the president took decisive action: He appointed a “czar” to take decisive actions for him against Ebola.

Ron Klain, his choice, is absolutely qualified to take this on, most importantly to assure a freaked-out nation. His No. 1 attribute is that he’s not a doctor. The doctors are the experts, but they have their hands full correcting various mistakes and reining in their hubris. Ron Klain has experience with a ton of that at the highest levels of government, and can finesse the politicians who are our biggest danger.

(Bob Franken is a syndicated columnist.)

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