John McCain vs John McCain: Ebola Czar Edition

In 2008, even though the presidency of Barack Obama has been a disaster, the American people picked the lesser of the two evils. It is truly terrifying that John McCain won the presidential nomination of a major political party.

At first, Senator McCain was opposed to using “czars” in government as this tweet obtained by the Huffington Post shows:

Fast forward to now and the Ebola epidemic. What does Senator McCain urge President Obama to do? Appoint an Ebola czar.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) believes President Barack Obama should appoint a “czar” to lead America’s response to Ebola.

“From spending time here in Arizona, my constituents are not comforted. There has to be more reassurance given to them. I would say that we don’t know exactly who’s in charge. There has to be some kind of czar,” McCain said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I don’t think we’re comforted by the fact that we were told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States,” McCain continued. “Obviously that’s not correct.”

Today, President Obama did just that. He appointed Ron Klain, a longtime advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, to the post. Klain has no apparent healthcare background.
So where does Senator McCain stand on the appointment? Senator McCain blasted the appointment of Klain.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who led the charge calling on President Obama to appoint a health czar to oversee the response to Ebola, says the president’s pick of Democratic operative Ron Klain is inadequate.

“Frankly, I don’t think Mr. Klain fits the bill, as a partisan Democrat, certainly not in any effort to address this issue in a bipartisan fashion,” McCain said Friday evening on Fox News.

“He has no experience or knowledge or background in medicine,” he added.

McCain is correct about the fact that Klain’s sole qualification to be Ebola Czar is that he’s a partisan Democrat hack and as such, he has no business coordinating anything. So what does McCain propose instead?

McCain said on Fox that Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell was the logical choice to fill the role of an Ebola czar, adding that she is a “very capable individual.”

Do Senator McCain and President Obama know we already have an Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response within the Department of Health and Human Services whose job is to….coordinate the government’s response to pandemics like Ebola?

Why do we need yet another “czar”?

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.