NEW YORK – Amid criticism that the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not acted swiftly or efficiently enough to combat the Ebola outbreak in the United States, President Obama has appointed well known Democratic Party operative Ron Klain as his “Ebola czar.”
Klain’s controversial role leading the legal battle over the 2000 Florida presidential election recount vote was portrayed in the 2008 film “Recount” by actor Kevin Spacey.
Obama’s choice of Klain is a strong indication of how the Obama White House views the Ebola threat, writes Chris Stirewalt, a political editor for Fox News, in his Washington Examiner column.
Stirewalt says that since Klain is “a political fixer and not an expert in epidemiology or public safety, we can assume that President Obama sees a political problem that needs to be fixed.”
President Obama indicated Thursday he might be open to appointing someone to coordinate the federal response to the Ebola outbreak.
“It may make sense for us to have one person … so that after this initial surge of activity, we can have a more regular process just to make sure that we’re crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s going forward,” Obama said.
A White House official said Klain will report directly to the president’s homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, and to National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
Klain served as chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. Previously, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination.
The official said Obama wants to ensure that “efforts to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola patients in this country are properly integrated but don’t distract from the aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa.”
Klain is currently president of Case Holdings and general counsel at Revolution LLC, a technology venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C.
Klain, who has no health care background, supervised the allocation of funds in the stimulus act.
CNN Political analyst David Gergen described him as “strong” and “very tough.”
“It’s important in this job to be a coordinator; you have to knock heads together,” said Gergen, an adviser to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. “He’s tough enough to do that.”
See actor Kevin Spacey interview Ron Klain:
[jwplayer HOLSAacq]
