YES, REALLY: FOX SAYS OBAMA WANTS TO PUT TOO MANY RESOURCES INTO FIGHTING EBOLA

A few weeks ago, I posted this on Twitter:

With so many Ebola patients in US pulling through, the next right-wing line will be that evil Obama exaggerated the danger of Ebola.

— Steve M. (@nomoremister) October 22, 2014

That hasn't happened yet, but this Fox News story tells us that some on the right now think Obama is actually overdoing the Ebola fight:

Obama's Ebola plans: A new boondoggle?

The Obama Administration's proposed $6.18 billion emergency package to combat the Ebola epidemic is drawing skepticism from conservative analysts who suggest the crisis is being used to jam a massive dose of spending through the lame-duck Congress before a Republican majority takes over both Senate and House next January....

The amounts are far in excess of the $988 million that the United Nations itself declared was necessary for an emergency response plan that extends from September 2014 to February 2015, and that is already two-thirds funded. (The U.S. has already donated $115 million to the plan.)

Well, yes, the amounts are in excess of what the UN has requested for Ebola in West Africa through February 2015 because, among other things, quite a bit of the money is earmarked for American needs, as is noted below.

... "In general, we are sort of aghast at the process," says Steven Bucci, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "This is a really poor way to respond. While clearly there is a need for some emergency measures, parts of this package don't go into effect for months. For the President to roll out it out this way as an emergency is really disingenuous."

Yes, and we know there can't possibly be any Ebola cases months from now, can there?

"I wish I could get money like this," declared Dr. Tom Stossel, a visiting professor for health care studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Stossel, a blood specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, also works with a charitable medical and dental center in Zambia.

"I can go along with the idea that we need to stop this outbreak in Africa, but the question is what all the dollars are really being used for. This is a very straightforward problem. There have been a few Ebola outbreaks in the past; this one is bigger. But I don"t see anything so far except throwing money at various government agencies."

Wait for it...

Stossel is the brother of Fox Business Network host John Stossel.

Of course.

As outlined in a lengthy memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, uses for the Administration's emergency billions range from building Ebola centers at home (about 50) and across swathes of West Africa, to ramping up training of personnel and stockpiling protective equipment, tracing victims' contact patterns and adding to Ebola education and outreach, to such grim business as helping to create safe burial teams that help limit the further spread of the disease.

But they also include such broad topics as "addressing food insecurity and other adverse impacts of the outbreak in affected areas," and "testing and development of new vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics," both of which could take years to accomplish.

Even though the Administration says that some remedies may be available within months, "this epidemic is going to be long over before some of these measures are available," argues Stossel.

Appalling! President Obama wants to build medical centers that are especially suited to Ebola! (Because Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, which wasn't such a hospital, was so good at dealing with Thomas Eric Duncan's case.) Obama wants training and equipment to deal with Ebola cases down the road! Obama wants research into new treatments! Why the hell would anyone want such things?

Oh, and there's money aimed at "addressing food insecurity and other adverse impacts of the outbreak in affected areas"! What's the point of that? Oh, right: Ebola-affected countries are facing the likelihood of famine as agriculture and the trade in food break down.

Moreover, the emergency proposal extends beyond Ebola itself to cover unspecified "other infectious diseases and public health emergencies both at home and abroad."

... Equally unspecified "global health security capacity in vulnerable countries" is apparently needed to "prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to outbreaks before they become epidemics" -- which is exactly what did not happen in the case of Ebola, despite warnings from the independent Doctors Without Borders as far back as last March that such an "unprecedented" epidemic threatened.

I love that last bit: Stupid Obama didn't detect the current Ebola outbreak early! So now he wants to improve the capacity for early detection of future outbreaks -- why does stupid Obama want to do that?

It's unbelievable. Right-wingers told us for weeks that Obama wasn't sufficiently concerned about Ebola, and in all likelihood was deliberately trying to induce an outbreak in the U.S., because he hates America and white people. Now he's trying to help get the current outbreak fully under control, deal with the aftermath, and prevent future Ebola crises -- and that's got the right teed off. He can't win.