Republicans had hoped that Ron Klain, President Barack Obama's
choice for a Ebola czar would instead have been someone from the medical community, said Tennessee GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn Sunday.
"We were hopeful that we were going to have someone who had the experience not only from the medical community, but in emergency response that would be out there and help walk not only our nation, but the entire globe through this process," Blackburn told CBS "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer.
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Klain, a longtime Democratic operative, is a trusted adviser at the Obama White House who served as Vice President Joe Biden's chief of staff from 2009 to 2011 and as Vice President Al Gore's from 1995 to 1999.
Klain left Biden's office during Obama's first term, and will report in his new assignment to National Security Adviser Susan Rice and to homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco.
He also is an attorney who was a key figure during the 2000 Florida presidential recount, and Blackburn said Sunday she just doesn't know what his emergency response experience is.
"Maybe the Bush-Gore recount qualified in that," Blackburn said. But at the same time, she told Schieffer she's been speaking with constituents, and there are many who have said they don't want spin on the Ebola crisis.
"'We don't want somebody to give a spin, we want somebody to give us the facts,'" she said constituents are telling her.
Meanwhile, Schieffer pointed out that there has been a
great deal of criticism at Congress' failure to confirm Obama's nominee, Vivek Murthy, 36, as surgeon general. Members of both parties in the Senate oppose him after the National Rifle Association protested his appointment because he called gun violence a national health crisis.
"I think what you have in the house is bipartisan frustration with [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid and the Senate," said Blackburn. "We have 387 house passed bills and 98% bipartisan, 298 of those bills veto-proof and they are sitting on Harry Reid's desk."
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