As the Ebola crisis generated fear and panic among Americans, President Obama once more began to take it on the chin, politically speaking.
The president was seen openly contradicting his own administration and other public health officials with a message that was as vague as was his approach to dealing with the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The Ebola scare brought some attention to the open vacancy he has for the position of US Surgeon General.
In all fairness, President Obama nominated Vivek Murthy to fill that post back in 2013, but the GOP has blocked the nomination at the behest of the National Rifleman’s Association (NRA). Murthy had politicized the position of surgeon general by trying to link gun rights as a matter of public health. While it is obvious that being shot by a gun is adverse to one’s own health, so it being hit by a bus or having one’s parachute fail to launch.
Clearly, Murthy was intent on taking his position into the domain of activist politics or at least his detractors believed he would. For this reason, the NRA announced that they would “score” the vote on Murthy. The score affects a candidates ranking with the NRA on gun rights and can prove pivotal in tight races. The GOP has since blocked his nomination.
What has the political Left upset is that GOP Senator Roy Blunt blames Obama for the open vacancy issue. Blunt believes the president should nominate someone less political than Murthy at which time the GOP would move forward with the nomination.