October 20, 2014

Last week Fox's Brian Kilmeade was pushing the notion that Former Sen. Bill Frist would make a good nominee for Surgeon General while discussing Sen. John McCain's calls for the appointment of an Ebola czar and the lack of an appointment for Surgeon General due to Republican obstruction in the Senate.

Yes, the same Bill Frist who gave a diagnosis of Terri Schiavo after watching video footage of the brain dead woman, and then later denying it, and who used to local animal shelters pretending to adopt cats which he instead used to "sharpen his surgical skills, killing them in the process" is the best choice we have for Surgeon General.

This Sunday Rep. Marsha Blackburn -- who truly is one of the more obnoxious members of the House but somehow manages to get herself planted on the television screen every time you turn around -- seemed to get her talking points a little mixed up when discussing the topic with Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

Rather than call for Frist to be nominated for Surgeon General as Kilmeade did, she told Schieffer he should have been appointed the Ebola czar instead of "the political operative" they've all been carping about appointed by President Obama, Ron Klain.

I have to wonder if Blackburn would still be so enthused about Frist if she realized he said this about their calls for a travel ban:

Some prominent Republicans, however, side with the president.

Former Sen. Frist said a travel ban "would be ineffective from a public and personal health perspective and would be grossly counterproductive to ensuring a cooperative, inclusive and closely aligned effort to eradicate the virus."

In a statement to The Associated Press, he said that "despite current fears," Ebola is not easily spread. He endorsed "comprehensive and targeted airport screening, like that implemented by the CDC."

It looks like Frist didn't get the memo on the travel ban. We'll see how fast Blackburn backtracks if anyone in the media points that out to her.

Full transcript via CBS:

SCHIEFFER: The appointment of long-time Democratic political operative, Ron Klain, to be the country's new Ebola czar -- they don't call him that, they call him the person in charge of coordinating -- has not gotten much praise from Republicans. One person who heard testimony this week from the CDC, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, joins us now from Nashville.

Well, Congresswoman, Republicans all wanted a czar appointed and then the president appointed one and now you don't like him.

So why is that?

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE: Well, Bob, I think that what we were hopeful was 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.

You know, General Honore or former Senator Bill Frist would have been a much more appropriate type of appointee to address this.

I don't know Ron Klain's emergency response experience. Maybe the Bush-Gore recount qualified in that. And I think talking to constituents, so many people have said, you know, we didn't want somebody to give a spin, we want somebody to give us the facts. and that's what they were hopeful for.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you this. Republicans, people in Congress have been very critical of the president. And yet, the Congress can't even break the gridlock long enough to confirm a surgeon general, which is supposed to be the top health office in the country.

I know that's what the confirmation process takes part...

BLACKBURN: Right.

SCHIEFFER: -- and place in the Senate. You're a member of the House.

BLACKBURN: Right.

SCHIEFFER: But give me your thoughts on that.

BLACKBURN: Yes, you know, I think that what you have in the House is bipartisan frustration with Harry Reid in the Senate. You know, we have 387 House-passed bills, 98 percent of them bipartisan, 298 of those bills veto-proof. And they're sitting on Harry Reid's desk.

And we find it very frustrating that the Senate has not been able to get the work done. We wish they would come back and that they would do that. It would help the country and it would get some things passed that need to be passed.

SCHIEFFER: All right, well, Congresswoman, thank you so much for giving us your side of it this morning.

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