Fox News’ Martha MacCallum turned to a pre-9/11 national security exercise enacting a biological attack of small pox as a vehicle to scare viewers into thinking that an Ebola terrorist attack could be hitting the U.S. at any moment.
MacCallum introduced the discussion by painting the following scenario for her viewers: “A terrorist, instead of being a suicide bomber and strapping a bomb to himself, allows himself to become sick with this disease and then moves in the population, intentionally trying to cough on things and sneeze on people and spread it… perhaps even several of these people.”
Instead of talking to a doctor or public health specialist, MacCallum consulted Republican speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who just published a column about the 2001 exercise that began with the inflammatory sentences: “The world is experiencing virulent outbreaks of Ebola and Islamist radicalism. What if the two threats converge into one?”
That was all the expertise needed for Fox News – and never mind that Thiessen has falsely accused President Obama of plagiarizing George W. Bush’s speech.
So what changes have been put in place since 9/11? MacCallum never got around to bringing it up. She was too busy giving Thiessen time to put forth his “nightmare scenario” that an infected terrorist could blow himself up in a crowded area “spreading infected tissue, turning it into a hot zone.”
Watch the fear mongering below, from last night's The Kelly File.