Why Craig Spencer doesn't matter

Nor does Kaci Hickox, for that matter.  While I give governors Cumo and Christy real credit for stepping into the utter chaos created by the bumblers from CDC and the White House, their 21 day quarantine of returning health care workers from West Africa is misplaced. 

The heroic volunteers who go to Liberia et. al. have the best training, expertise, life preserving self-interest and sound judgment to know when to cease all contact with others.   Dr. Craig Spencer notwithstanding, self reporting from their US homes such suffice, so long as they agree by binding enforceable administrative orders to remain inside these abodes until cleared of having contracted the disease by the requisite blood tests.

Instead, the several states and the federal government absolutely need to impose a medically supervised quarantine on the 180 or so West Africans arriving on our shores daily, the vast majority of whom have had no training, no expertise, no PPE and no demonstrated good sense not to ignore their own self protections, and the protection of their families and friends by self isolating for the requisite period of time.

Think about this comparative risk analysis and then decide which group of travelers from West Africa need to be isolated by our public health authorities - Mr. Charles Duncan from Liberia - who had a neighbor and close friend oozing bodily fluids from every orifice in her body before, during and after he (attired in his civvies and tidy-whities) carries her in a Monrovia taxi for a futile ride to and from the local hospital where she is refused admission or the American health care workers who wear "moon suits" for every possible ebola contact they undertake.  Does this refusal to quarantine the known unprotected populations of West Africa coming to America, while simultaneously isolating in compelled jail like "lock-up" American heroes make any sense other than politically and scientifically incorrect sense?

The CDC and the White House got what they deserved by failing so arrogantly to protect us all from this ongoing ebola debacle, but all Americans deserve a state response that maximizes ifs effectiveness by targeting only the thousands of West Africans coming here weekly, many probably wearing the same clothes they wore when carrying around their ebola dying relatives.  When will any of our governing elite learn to use a little common sense?  Probably not before a West African infected traveler moves into their Georgetown, DC neighborhood. 

Why Leon Panetta still Matters

What the honorable, former Secretary of Defense did to President Barrack Obama on Tuesday evening in his 40 minute interview by William O'Reilly on the Factor may well have been unprecedented in American political theater, certainly a unique event during my lifetime.  What Mr. Panetta did to Obama was both disloyal and disrespectful, indeed an act of shamelessly disrobing the Emperor. 

More significantly, however, what Mr. Panetta did for his country Tuesday was an act of true patriotism, immense courage and bravery rarely, if ever, seen in the ruling elites of America.  To sum up Mr. Panetta's devastating critique of Mr. Obama's presidency over the last six years, this life long democratic Icon (no right wingnut, Tea Party fav.) told the Nation that the current occupant of the White House knows full well what should be done to protect America against our foreign adversaries - Russia and China - and our avowed war making enemies - radical Islamists, but he refuses to take the necessary forceful actions of effective deterrence and the powerful military defense of America in the Middle East.   

Think about that Panetta statement for a second, or as long as it takes for its full impact to jar your conscience.  The former Secretary of Defense, who served for four years directly under President Obama, and therefore, has deep personal, intimate knowledge of the thinking and acting of this President, has concluded that Mr. Obama has made a conscious, willful decision to shirk his duties.

O'Reilly pressed Panetta repeatedly on why Mr. Obama has failed to demonstrate leadership on the world scene, but on this issue real candor and forthright analysis was replaced by the Secretary's ardent pleas for Obama to right the Nation's course over the last two years of this presidency.

Truth be told, I felt like I was  witnessing an Intervention around the family dining room table - Leon Panetta appeared almost desperate at moments, seemingly hoping that his outreach might break through the icy calm and dispassion of this President, to literally shake him out of his lethargy so that America might yet be saved. 

Pushback from an Administration known for its intolerance of dissent might well be swift and powerful. Nonetheless, I am confident that Leon Panetta doesn't care.  Of all the great patriots in our history, the one Mr. Panetta now most reminds me of is Nathan Hale.