H1N1 and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcast of Liars:
It’s Always Been a Matter of Trust
October 28, 2009
From the Bizarro World come daily panic updates about the escalating H1N1 “Swine Flu” pandemic.
Half of the sane people in the country are becoming anxious over escalating pandemic risks and the other half of the sane population believes that this so-called pandemic is another Obamian subterfuge. The crazy people are sitting it out in Washington DC.
Nobody can be certain where the truth lies and {{ruffles & flourishes}}...it’s all Obama’s fault.
Obama (probably) didn’t create the H1N1 virus. And he (probably) would want to insulate the US population from the devastating effects of a pandemic.
But Obama and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcast of Liars have amassed a negative credibility function in record Beltway time.
About half of the US population doesn’t believe a thing coming out either Obama or his administration and the blame for that lies at Obama’s door.
This lack of credibility translates into a failing of leadership and could lead to a national disaster.
It’s no different from what happened to the color coded terror threat level scale of the Bush years.
As liberal “journalist” Michael Isikoff remarked, “It doesn’t mean that there weren’t genuine security fears...There were...But because of the highly politicized atmosphere, because of the track record the Bush administration had demonstrated...there were widespread suspicions as to whether or not these constant terror threat alerts were, indeed, genuine or whether they were influenced by politics.”
Just as the liberals pooh-poohed and ignored the warnings of any increase in the terror threat level as more Bush politics, Conservatives are justifyingly pooh-poohing pandemic warnings as more Obamian omnipotence.
That we have national leadership, at all levels, that can allow, or even create, such a distrust in the government of, by and for the People is an indignity to the United States and just purely dangerous.
The threat of a pandemic, just like the threat of a terrorist attack, is nothing to be politicized and nothing to be taken lightly.
We certainly don’t remember the 1918 pandemic but we do remember September 11, 2001.
The 3000 lives lost on 911 are a drop in the bucket compared to the 30,000 lives lost to a normal flu season.
But the 30,000 lives lost (from a population of over 305 million people) to a normal flu season are a drop in the bucket compared to the over 500,000 US lives claimed (from a population of 103 million) by the 1918 pandemic.
It might be comforting to reassure oneself that a 1918-variety pandemic was unique and could never happen again but that is nonsense. A pandemic, influenza-based or otherwise, will someday ravage the world again.
But “someday” is no reason to lie awake in a cold, panic-stricken sweat.
The What, Where and When of “someday” is why we pay taxes to our government and why that government spends so lavishly on creations like the Centers for Disease Control, The Department of Health and Human Services, The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...you get the point.
It is the responsibility of the government to marshal the resources needed to accurately anticipate probable threats and credibly deal with them.
And credible is the operative word.
On January 9, 2009 Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers hyped a report ("The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan") projecting that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010 and also predicting unemployment rates without the stimulus would reach about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, the Obama team and leading Democrats predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009.
Remember...the Obama team stampeded US taxpayer into believing that we had to “immediately” spend about a $Trillion or unemployment would rise above 8%.
Today, about 9 months and more than $Trillion later, unemployment is at 9.8% and climbing.
And how is President Obama credibly explaining this to the electorate?
For your $Trillion and the highest unemployment rate in 26 years, the Obama administration crowed that, “its economic stimulus had saved or created 250,000 education jobs”. In fact, Vice President Biden boasted that the stimulus was “helping soften the blow of tough times, by keeping educators on the job and teachers in the classroom.”
Excuse me but I thought that we already paid taxes for “education jobs” and that the stimulus was supposed to create new jobs.
Where is the credibility?
On August 17, 2009, in a speech before the veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama asserted that the war in Afghanistan, “...is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity...So this is not only a war worth fighting...this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”
In that same speech, Obama promised that he would, “...equip our forces with the assets and technologies they need to fight and win....”
Today, Obama, to the dismay of his generals and their troops, still has no strategy for Afghanistan and is indecisive on providing our forces “with the asset and technologies they need to fight and win.”
Where is the credibility on these life and death issues?
And then, in April 2009, the H1N1 virus crossed the Rio Grande and entered the United States.
In fact, in April 2009, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, first declared the H1N1 virus a public health emergency.
So, what did Obama’s administration do?
The New York Times reported that, “...the Obama administration left little to chance. It built a new Web site...It staged role-playing exercises for public health officials and members of the news media...It commissioned public service announcements, featuring the fuzzy Sesame Street characters Elmo and Rosita singing in English and Spanish about ‘the right way to sneeze’...and (Obama) appeared in the Rose Garden to urge Americans to wash their hands.”
But where’s the beef? The above response is very nice but it’s all show and no go...if we are facing a real pandemic.
Between May and July of 2009, the US government ordered 250 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine and promptly pledged to donate 10% 0r 25 million doses to “poor” nations. So for a country with a population in excess of 305 million people, the government planned on 225 million does of vaccine to combat the H1N1 “pandemic”.
At the end of September 2004, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said there “will be plenty of vaccine for everyone who wants it...250 million doses have been purchased, and that will be plenty.” She omitted the fact that the US was only retaining 225 million does. But don’t fret.
As recently as late summer of 2009, the government “predicted that up to 100 million doses would be available this month (October) and then later cut that estimate to 40 million before slashing it again...to 28 million.”
As of today, the government has received 22.4 million doses of vaccine.
So what went wrong?
On October 21, 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that, “...federal officials had assumed there would be a lag in vaccine availability (and) are not surprised that H1N1 has spiked at a time when there is not enough vaccine available.”
Yet, on October 23, 2009, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “We are no where near where we thought we'd be now”.
Well, which is it?
And speaking of credibility....
Secretary Sebelius said, on October 21, 2009 that, “...government health officials anticipate a spike in both seasonal and H1N1 cases going forward, not a drop off...meaning that the vaccine will not reach the majority of Americans too late.”
Now I’m confused.
On August 24, 2009, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report (Report To The President On U.S. Preparations For 2009-H1N1 Influenza) which the White House couldn’t stop crowing about.
On page 35 of that report, PCAST strongly advised an accelerated schedule for the H1N1 vaccine because, “plans announced in July by the HHS Secretary (Sebelius) would provide the first significant quantities of 2009-H1N1 vaccine in mid-October; an effective immune response would take another 2 to 4 weeks to develop after vaccination. Under the model scenario described in Chapter 3, the resurgence of the epidemic would start in September and peak in mid-October. If this model is approximately correct with respect to timing, a vaccination campaign would not begin to protect vaccinees until well after the epidemic had peaked.”
Pardon me, but...who the hell is telling the truth?
This is just a very small sampling of the kinds of half-truths and inconsistencies the Obama administration has represented to the US electorate in regard to the H1N1 virus that Obama himself declared on October 24, 2009 to be a “national emergency”.
Who can blame a very confused citizenry for being very confused when the leadership of this nation is, at best, very confused?
Bad government has always been a matter of lies and coercion and good government has always been a matter of truth and trust.
Perhaps Washington will realize this before there is a real national emergency and the citizenry is numb to leaders who are constantly crying wolf and telling other fables.
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