The following statement made on MSNBC (and reported at Hot Air) gets my award for the Outrageous Claim of the Day:
If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take.
Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013.
I am supposed to believe that there is only one man in all of America who can educate the American public on how to deal with ebola? Wow. Just for the record, the fact that Dr. Murthy’s nomination did not go through was not the fault of either the NRA or the Republicans (two favorite targets of blame on MSNBC). Conservative Democrats opposed the nomination because of Dr. Murthy’s stand on gun control (which he considers a health issue). The NRA opposed the nomination because the Doctor did not support the rights of Americans outlined in the Second Amendment. However, the Congressmen who voted are responsible for their vote–not the NRA.
The article at Hot Air concludes:
Murthy is a vigilant spokesman for the idea that guns are a health issue, and doctors should be asking patients if they have weapons in their homes. (Not to mention potentially collecting that information and passing it along.) This is very much along the same lines as finding out who enjoys hang gliding or lives in tall apartment buildings. The problem with this sort of muddled thinking is that it confuses the topics of disease and injury. We want to reduce the incidence of illness among Americans and education can play in important role in that mission. But injuries are a different category, and gun injuries in particular have nothing to do with communicable health hazards.
Murthy is a willing volunteer in a somewhat obscure column of the army trying to limit the Second Amendment rights of Americans. We don’t need him taking a seat in the Cabinet. And in the meantime, the White House can surely find someone else with a medical degree to talk about Ebola.
I wonder if people who get all of their news at MSNBC actually believe what the network is saying.