No, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin: The possibility of Islamic State agents infecting themselves with the Ebola virus and traveling to the US is not a “real and present danger.”
No, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona: We were not told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States.
No, Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas (him again): The Obama administration is not conducting a war against “women nurses” (or male nurses, for that matter). And yes, I am sure neither you nor I have Ebola.
Once again, all praise to Shepard Smith of Fox News for keeping his head when all around him are losing theirs. His eloquent, informed statement about the minimal risk of Ebola in the US (as opposed to the real and terrible impact of the disease in west Africa) deserves the widest possible circulation:
Talk radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer didn’t like Smith’s suggestion that some Republicans are scaremongering on Ebola for political gain. So they reacted in typical fashion– by gay–baiting.
Of course it’s legitimate to criticize the federal government’s less-than-ideal response to the original case of Ebola in Dallas. But in order to do that, it helps to believe that the government needs to have a crucial role in the health care system– not the minimal-to-non-existent role advocated by the Right.
