Chuck Todd aptly began today's "Meet The Press" with the phrase America on Edge. Americans are in fact on edge because of this ebola scare, yes, but also because they see our institutions getting sloppy like the Secret Service, the Center of Disease Control (CDC), the I.R.S., and the real root of the problem - Congress.
Many members of our House of Representatives and Senate actively sew the seeds of distrust in the federal government and then later harvest all the rewards that it gives a person upon reelection. One of the ways this now established distrust has manifested itself is that it has given the motivation to these leaders to make big cuts in the funding for these institutions rendering them ill-equipped to handle an emergency. With lack of resources and morale trampled by distrust in their work, just like physical infrastructure, our institutions will inevitably break down. This is what we are seeing now, and furthermore we can not, as a country, feel reassured by the President of the United States because the non-stop personal attacks have flooded into damaging the office itself.
However, given that, we do feel reassured when Dr. Tom Frieden, Director of the CDC, said that an epidemic in the United States is highly unlikely and it is because, as he also said, the United States, in spite of its communication issues (our injection), is the best in the world in terms of monitoring and containing capabilities. If it turns out that no one else is infected in Dallas then you would have to consider that a big win considering that the U.S. is a free country and it is inevitable that someone infected with the Ebola virus would make it into the country. It's inevitable that it will happen again. And it will be contained with even more diligence, unlike in western Africa where 7,492 have been infected and 3,439 have died in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea as a result of infection.
The United States is the most prepared, but as Joe Scarborough pointed out, the World Health Organization and the governments of these respective African countries have done a poor job in their response to the epidemic, which is troubling. Andrea Mitchell mentioned that the U.S. military is having trouble setting up emergency facilities because any sense of infrastructure in these countries is nonexistent. We disagree with Senator Rand Paul who thinks the U.S. military shouldn't have been deployed to contain the virus. We would contend that this is the sort of preemptive foreign policy that makes sense. With that, Mr. Scarborough pushes the panic button too hard and we agree with David Axelrod when he said that these healthcare professionals do not have political agendas when it comes to the work they're doing, specifically at the CDC.
The two men verbally sparred on the topic, which was inappropriate for "Meet The Press," and as we've said before, having Joe Scarborough on the program hampers the show being synonymous with the moderator. Then again, "Meet The Press" now has a 'coffee bar' on the set, which is the perfect notion of a setting to have an in-depth, serious discussion about the key issues affecting millions of Americans. A coffee bar on the 'program of record?'
In that dig we digress but then yet again the first guest to sit there was Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who is hard to take seriously anyway. But we believe him when he said that it will be considered a loss for Republicans if they do not take control of the Senate in November, a point at which he hammered away repeatedly. He softly predicted Republicans picking up anywhere from 6 to 8 seats in the Senate but we would say that even six is a stretch. As the conservative Mr. Scarborough pointed out, Republicans do not have an agenda, a concrete set of policy proposals that run counter to Mr. Obama's policies, which can do it better. And that's why you see Democratic candidates doing well in states that Mr. Obama didn't win (the south) in 2012. It also plays into the notion we spoke about in a previous column which is that Americans like big state government despite all the conditioning to dislike big federal government.
On the subject of big government, we thought Mr. Todd's tact in questioning Mr. Priebus about the contradiction within the Republican philosophy of deregulating business, but when it comes to abortion clinics Republicans want to heavily regulate them, referring to the state of Texas as the specific example. Mr. Priebus punted on the question saying that Mr. Todd would have to ask someone in Texas. He went onto to say that public money shouldn't be used to fund abortion but that was not what was at issue. But what he didn't say is that abortion should be made illegal - a total ban, which is part of the Republican platform.
It's inflexible ideology that have set Americans on edge because they see it in their government, but not in themselves, and only given stark choices in terms of candidates. It's starting to show through, especially in the Kansas Senate race between Pat Roberts (R) and the independent Greg Orman. Take today's 'Meet The Candidate' series guest, fmr. Democratic Senator and fmr. Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb who used to be a Republican. Mr. Webb would be a potentially compelling candidate for many Americans because you see the ability to compromise there.
As that refers more to domestic policy, on foreign policy we agree with Mr. Webb that the United States does not have a clearly stated approach, which he made a point to say that both Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush before him are guilty of this. As Mr. Webb correctly reminded us, this escalation of violence in the Middle East (read: ISIS) was all set into motion by the U.S.'s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That was eleven years ago and here we are again. In the op-ed segment with Iraq War veteran Clay Hanna (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/boots-on-the-ground-iraq-111271.html#.VDGAU-dXSX1), he send that the United States already has 'boots on the ground,' which isn't surprising. We know this given the airstrike operations going on, which require personnel on the ground to conduct. However, Mr. Hannah made two critical points: one, that the United States overestimates it's Middle Eastern allies in helping the U.S. In conjunction with this Senator Webb explained that the loyalties of moderate Sunnis are fluid and that he wouldn't be surprised to learn that some senior ISIS fighters were trained by the U.S.
With that in mind, consider the other important point Mr. Hanna made and that is a big victory for ISIS would be a dead American soldier by their hand. That would really put Americans on edge, perhaps over it.
Round Table (Panel): David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama; Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe;" Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Gwen Ifill, PBS The News Hour
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