Ebola and Tom Frieden

The editorial that I chose to critique was, “GOP Lawmakers Call for CDC Director Frieden to Step Down,” written in “The TexasFred Blog” October 16th, 2014.  As the title indicates, this blog entry refers to an article written about how the GOP feels that Tom Frieden, the director of the CDC, should step down.

The target audience would best be described as the right leaning conservatives that already have a chip on their shoulder about the Obama administration and wish to point fingers in his direction every chance they get. TexasFred is written by a man named Fred Witzell who self admittedly is an overly opinionated conservative redneck.  From what can be gathered from his blog, his entire credibility is derived from the numerous followers to his blog.

At points I agree with what Fred has to say, and at others I disagree.  Ebola coming into the US is a major ordeal, and one that, regardless of the cuts to an organization, should have had all the attention directed to.  The one substantial point that is made, is that Ebola coming into the US has shaken people from the idea that because they live in the greatest, and most advanced country in the world, that foreign disease can’t come and spread like we live in a third world country.  Essentially Ebola does not care where you’re from, what you look like or how high on the totem pole you may feel you are.  Everyone here has the potential to catch it if it is not taken care of in the proper manner from this point on.

That being said, the rest of the blog is basically drivel meant to stir up the base into hooting and hollering about how everything is Obama’s fault.  While arguably there is more proactively that could have been done on his part, possibly even micro managing to a degree to ensure that a disease that has the potential to have devastating effects, does not spread.  Fred emphasizes the fact that Tom Frieden was appointed to his position by President Obama, again to imply that everything bad is Obama’s fault.  

Regardless of whether you agree with Fred’s opinion on the article, or the even further extreme opinion that he has for the Obama administration, what would be appreciated in an editorial of this nature, would be something along the lines of possibly proposing another idea of how better to handle the situation.  Yes, getting rid of a bad appointee might help, but what might help Fred would be to give the reader a little insight into what Tom Frieden directly did wrong, and where he could have improved.

Ultimately there wasn’t much meat to the article.  Mainly some deep seeded opinions and anger.  Anger in a situation of this gravity is understandable, but what would help is deeper analysis and less pointing fingers at the other side.