The Obama administration’s management of Ebola is "non-commonsensical," says political analyst and author Dick Morris, who appeared Thursday on
Newsmax TV's "America’s Forum."
He pointed to the lack of a flight ban and to the Pentagon ordering 21-day quarantines for soldiers returning to the U.S. from West Africa, where Ebola is an epidemic, yet the
administration pressuring New Jersey to cave to the demands of a nurse who complained about being held in isolation upon her return.
"None of us understand why Obama is not willing to impose a flight ban," Morris said.
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"There are charter flights, there are all kinds of ways of getting people to and from the area, and what is so wrong with asking a health care worker to spend 21 days in quarantine?" Morris said.
"This isn't a life sentence, this is three weeks and they, of all people, should understand the reason for that. The fact that we're imposing it on our soldiers but not on healthcare workers, the Ebola virus does not recognize uniforms. A white uniform is as good as a camouflaged one as far as it's concerned."
President Obama’s allowance of contradictory quarantine policies for the military versus civilian health care workers makes him "look awful," according to Morris.
"The president said there's no reason to treat health care workers as pariahs," he said. "Well there's no reason to treat troops as pariahs either.
"But the political implications are what I'm going to focus on, so let me do that. He looks awful. He looks weak, he looks unprepared, he looks non-commonsensical. Everybody understands how you're supposed to deal with a situation like this and it's clear that he's not, and it's very bad for his image — and he can't lay it off on Congress or on events or on anything.
"This is his issue and he's flubbing it."
Further, Morris said, the newly appointed Ebola czar,
Ron Klain, is not qualified for the job.
"Ron Klain is as a qualified to be the Ebola czar as I am," Morris said. "We have roughly similar qualifications. We both have been lifelong political operatives and neither of us know a single thing about medicine.
"It is absurd that he's the Ebola czar. He could have picked a Nobel Prize-winning doctor, he could have picked the discoverer of DNA … but he chose not to. Instead he's chosen a political hack and nobody's treating him seriously nor should they."
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Obama’s bungling of Ebola is a sharp contrast to Americans’ perceptions of how he handled Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
"In a curious way, it's the opposite of Sandy," Morris said. "It's a natural occurrence, a God-driven event, if you will, that he has failed to handle well, as opposed to Sandy, where there was an impression that he handled it well.
"Those crises are uniquely presidential. They're not institutional. They deal with the decision of one man and how to deal with the situation and as such, he can accumulate enormous political harm."
Morris, author of
"Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One Party Nation" also discussed with "America's Forum" host J.D. Hayworth the issue of voter fraud. A study found that in 2012, at least 35,000 people in North Carolina voted twice, once in The Tar Heel State, and once in another state.
"Now these same people probably didn't vote twice, but somebody voted their name in the state they moved from," he said. "They moved to North Carolina and then somebody voted their name because it remained on the voter rolls, and that's 35,000 votes in one state and the survey only encompassed 26 other states.
"If it were all 50 — California, New York didn't participate — it could have been much, much more, perhaps as many as 70,000," he said.
"The idea of voter fraud being a rarity that we occasionally discover just is not true. It's widespread, it's all over the place. It's ubiquitous. That's why we need the photo ID requirement, which is really the only way to stop this."
On account of Obama’s dismal approval ratings, particularly among young and Hispanic voters, Morris predicted a
likely Republican sweep at next week’s midterms.
"They may win all 10 of the contested Senate seats and might have to give back Kansas, but I hope not, but certainly will hold Georgia," he said.
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