Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox has slammed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for placing her under mandatory quarantine after she returned from Sierra Leone. But to Greta Van Susteren, the real culprit is (surprise! surprise!) President Obama.
On Sunday, Hickox blasted Christie on CNN:
“First of all, I don’t think he’s a doctor; secondly, he’s never laid eyes on me; and thirdly, I’ve been asymptomatic since I’ve been here,” Hickox told (Candy) Crowley Sunday.
In a separate interview with CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Hickox elaborated on what she thought of Christie’s assessment of her medical condition.
“I’m sorry, but that’s just a completely unacceptable statement in my opinion. For (Christie) -- a politician who’s trusted and respected—to make a statement that’s categorically not true is just unacceptable and appalling.”
But in her “Off The Record” commentary last night, Van Susteren ignored Hickox’s comments even as she lionized her:
Kaci Hickox is not a terrorist. She is not a shoe bomber. She’s a nurse who went to Sierra Leone to help people who are dying from Ebola and also trying to stop Ebola from spreading. She risked her life. She obviously has a big heart or she would not be doing this type of work.
Now, I’ve been to refugee camps and even to cholera camps. Those volunteers work 24/7 in the worst possible conditions. And my guess? When Nurse Hickox landed at Newark Airport, she was really worn out physically and mentally. No doubt had flown all night. And then she was greeted by a dysfunctional and panic-stricken government. And instead of being thanked for helping and risking her life, she was treated like a criminal, taken into custody. Not much respect. Yeah, she got mad. Do you blame her?
So far so good. But then Van Susteren veered off into Sarah Palin territory.
I blame President Obama. And to a lesser degree, Governor Chris Christie. Had Nurse Hickox been treated with the respect she was due – instead of being treated like a terrible person… I bet she would not have gotten mad. She may have understood the panic. And by the way, why the panic?
Well, President Obama gets a good share of that blame. He didn’t do his job. He sat on his hands and ignored the World Health Organization’s Ebola warning last March. He ignored them again in August. If President Obama were doing his job, he would have put strong rules and policies in effect to meet the predictable crisis. Instead, we have chaos. And that is what Nurse Hickox walked into when she got off that plane.
Van Susteren never got into the share of the blame that Christie bore. Even though Obama really had nothing to do with Hickox’s quarantine.
By the way, Christie released Hickox - after she threatened legal action.
What do you suppose she would do if Obama heeded THIS bit also from the World Health Organization:
In the past few years, firearms-related death and injury have been called everything from a “scourge” (1) to an “epidemic” (2), a “disease” (3) and a “preventable global health problem” (4). The biological analogies are not accidental or far-fetched. Among people aged 15–44 years, interpersonal violence and suicide rank third and fourth, respectively among the world’s leading causes of ill-health and premature mortality, while war-related injuries rank sixth (5). A large proportion of these occur through the use of firearms.
(http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/violence/small_arms/en/ )
From WHO’s 2002 “World Report on Violence and Health” comes the following excerpt from “Recommendation 4: Promote primary prevention responses”:
“Another issue for both national and local interventions is prevention of firearm injuries and improvement of firearm-related safety measures. Firearms are an important risk factor in many types of violence, including youth and collective violence and suicide. Interventions to reduce injuries from guns—whether accidental or intentional—include, for example, legislation on gun sales and ownership, programmes to collect and decommission illegal weapons in areas of frequent gun-related violence, programmes to demobilize militia and soldiers after conflicts, and measures to improve safe storage of weapons.” (Full paper available in PDF form at http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2002/9241545615_eng.pdf?ua=1 )
And given the recent school shooting in Washington State, this WHO “recommendation” seems to have been willfully ignored by the former President Bush and his fellow GOPers ever since who’ve been held hostage by extreme right-wing teabaggers as well as the NRA. But, again, anyone think Greta’s going to demand Obama pay attention to this particular WHO warning and recommendation?