Fox contributor Laura Ingraham smeared medical personnel who have returned from fighting Ebola in Africa merely because they flanked President Obama during his address to the country last week.
As Media Matters noted:
On October 29, President Obama addressed the United States’ on-going response to Ebola outbreaks in West Africa joined by several health care workers recently returned from relief operations overseas as well as others soon to depart for the region. Among the guests was Dr. Kent Brantly, who became infected while volunteering in Liberia and was the first Ebola patient treated on American soil. The president addressed the urgent need to “stop the outbreak at its source,” and thanked the “extraordinary American health workers who are on the front lines of the fight.”
But “patriotic” Ingraham was so eager to attack President Obama, she didn’t mind using American heroes as political fodder:
On her October 30th radio show, Ingraham said:
He (Obama) was flanked by volunteers who have gone to West Africa to help the victims of Ebola. Are we positive it was all volunteers, Julia? Could it have been some of the folks from Organizing for America just in the white coats?
Ingraham justified the smear by falsely suggesting that Obama had done that before:
Remember last time they did that during the ObamaCare run up? Where they, they brought all these doctors into the Rose Garden and I think some of them didn’t have their white coats and I think – I swear the White House has a wardrobe department. They snapped up some white coats somewhere and they passed ‘em out. So it’s, look, “really reassuring, ‘cause we have the white coats with Obama. OK? So we’re handling this Ebola thing just fine, thank you very much.”
But handing out white coats to doctors, as Obama reportedly did for a 2009 ObamaCare photo-op, is a far cry from dressing up political operatives as fake medical personnel. And even if these particular Ebola volunteers were also Democratic operatives, they’re still American heroes and should be recognized as such.
So who’s really using them as props, Laura?
Listen to the segment below, via Media Matters.