As I noted when John McCain was calling for the appointment of an "Ebola czar" over the weekend, maybe it would be nice if Republicans quit blocking President Obama's appointment for Surgeon General instead of calling for any more "czars."
It seems Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy has suddenly decided it might be a good idea to have one as well, with his co-host Brian Kilmeade chiming in that President Obama ought to nominate former Senate Majority Leader (and animal shelter cat killer) Bill Frist.
Doocy blamed the lack of a Sugeon General on the nomination being "tied up in politics" as though his network had nothing to do with it.
Fox News hosts stoked fears that the United States' ability to respond to Ebola may be weakened by the absence of a Surgeon General, a concern that whitewashes the network's history of smearing the pending Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy.
Following CDC director Tom Frieden's October 13 statement that a Dallas nurse's contraction of Ebola requires hospitals to "rethink" infection control and "double down" on precautions, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy suggested that the administration's response to Ebola is suffering from a lack of leadership without a designated Surgeon General, arguing:
DOOCY: You would normally think that in something like this, the Surgeon General would be in charge, but right now at this point oddly, the United States of America does not have a Surgeon General. His nomination is tied up in politics.
Doocy's concern stands in contrast to Fox News' efforts to stall and politicize the Surgeon General nomination process earlier this year.
Fox personalities repeatedly worked to cast doubt on Dr. Vivek Murthy's nomination, questioning his strong qualifications and smearing him as "too political" for the job. In March, network host Brian Kilmeade alleged that Murthy "hasn't done much in his career yet," and argued that "you want to be impressed with" a Surgeon General nominee's resume. Read on...
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