Remember how, in the heat of the election and the height of Ebola panic, Republicans and Fox News were all about President Obama's failure to lead on the Ebola "crisis"? Now that Ebola panic has no more utility for them, they're
slamming him for leading and trying to help with the epidemic that is still ravaging West Africa.
The Obama Administration’s proposed $6.18 billion emergency package to combat the Ebola epidemic is drawing skepticism from conservative analysts who suggest the crisis is being used to jam a massive dose of spending through the lame-duck Congress before a Republican majority takes over both Senate and House next January.
Their concern comes amid a rising chorus of statements from U.S. and international organizations, including United Nations agencies, urging more and faster international aid spending to ward off starvation and childbirth deaths in West Africa as a result of Ebola.
It's only Africans starving and dying in childbirth, so what's the big deal? Fox commentator John Stossel has a brother who also happens to be a doctor, Dr. Tom Stossel, "a visiting professor for health care studies at the American Enterprise Institute." So of course he's the healthcare expert they turn to to tell them that spending this money is a big waste and that "this epidemic is going to be long over before some of these measures are available."
Meanwhile, 1 in 7 women in the Ebola-hit countries risks dying in childbirth because the health systems there are so overwhelmed trying to fight Ebola and because fear of the disease prevents people from helping them get care. Besides the risks for pregnant women, people suffering from other diseases that run rampant in these countries—malaria and tuberculosis, for example—are in danger of losing care because the clinics can't cope with more than just Ebola. The money Obama is asking for would address these infrastructure problems, in part, as well as providing immediate aid and equipment for fighting the outbreak. But again, that's just trying to prevent African deaths. That doesn't matter to Fox News.