OPINION:
The czar has gone AWOL. Czars are not usually retiring fellows. They travel with many hangers-on, accompanied by big men with machetes, or at least clubs, to clear the way. Czars are no-nonsense guys who walk with heavy tread. You know they’re there.
Just not always. Ron Klain, President Obama’s aide who is supposed to be in charge, if anyone is, of the White House response to the Ebola crisis, has been seen only once since he was appointed on Oct. 17. He was last seen taking his ease on a sofa in the Oval Office, “conferring with the president.” But it looked like what he was doing was getting his picture taken with the president.
The White House declines to say exactly where he is or what he has been doing, perhaps because nobody there knows. This fits with the rest of the government’s response to the fear and loathing, as well as to the virus itself. Josh Earnest, the president’s press agent, is trying to put the best face on the case of the missing czar, but he sounds like the White House fall guy.
“I recognize that all of you have not had a chance to see him and talk to him every day,” he says, “but the president certainly has.” Or maybe not. The czar isn’t likely to be around much, even if the FBI, the CIA, the Metropolitan Police, the National Security Agency, Inspector Clouseau and Fearless Fosdick can find him. He might do the occasional briefing or interview, says the earnest Mr. Earnest. “That is pretty low on his to-do list.”
The White House says Mr. Klain, apparently working under deep cover — very deep cover — has briefed the president on six of seven days since he began work. He couldn’t say what the czar did on the seventh day. Perhaps, like God after the creation of the world, he rested. Some people at the White House think he might have talked to some state officials, but not others. They’re not sure.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia says he talked to the czar once, to tell him how Virginia was monitoring people returning from West Africa. He didn’t say whether the czar took notes. Officials in Texas and Florida say they haven’t heard from him at all. Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have their own survival to worry about, insist they sense a “raised tempo,” and others say the czar’s job requires “a deft touch,” leading to speculation that the czar, wherever he is, is practicing “deftness.” Or yoga or transcendental meditation. Or maybe watching the World Series. The Ebola czar has many duties.
Adm. Thad W. Allen, a retired czar who was in charge of the government’s response to the BP oil-well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago, tries to be reassuring. “One size does not fit all,” he says of the Ebola czar’s work ethic. Still, he thinks it can help to have someone who knows what the government is doing. “The country is looking for kind of a coherent explanation about how that comes together.” We’re holding out hope that he will come back from wherever he is, with lots of good war stories.
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