AUSTIN, Texas — After hearing the news shortly after midnight early Sunday morning that a second Ebola case had been diagnosed in a Texas Presbyterian Hospital nurse, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings stayed up through the night putting together an action plan.
In contrast, President Barack Obama’s response is being criticized as not adequately prioritizing the crisis. As Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren tweeted, Obama made a phone call to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and then “headed out to play golf.” CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller had posted that the press corps had been escorted to vans in the presidential motorcade to go to the golf course, but then were led back to the White House for a photo opp of Obama on the phone with Burwell that “lasted only 40 seconds.” Knoller tweeted several photos of Obama wearing a casual windbreaker, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office while speaking on the phone.
Knoller also reported shortly after 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time that Obama has arrived at Fort Belvoir Golf Club for “his 200th round of golf as President.” The Golf Channel confirmed that this was the 200th round of golf for Obama — or, as they dubbed him, the “First Duffer” — since he became president.
Twitchy.com reported several negative reactions questioning how seriously the president was taking the Ebola crisis, allowing only a short delay in his golf game and quipping “What a workaholic!” Conservative lawyer and author David Limbaugh tweeted a cartoon of Obama in ancient Roman garb, golfing as the city burned around him as “unfair to Nero,” referring to the Roman emperor who was rumored to have played a fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. Austin-based Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak weighed in, “Obama is closely monitoring the #Ebola crisis and our war with ISIS from Gwyneth Paltrow’s house and the golf course.” [Disclosure: Mackowiak is a Breitbart Texas contributor.]
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