Failures of competence

But it is also true that the C.D.C. was too hubristic in its approach to Ebola, and the consequence is that its staff now looks like bumblers. “They never challenged their own assumptions,” says Dr. Richard Wenzel, an infectious disease specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University. “This is an unforgiving virus,” he added, “about which there is a lot we don’t know.” The C.D.C.’s unfortunate habit of saying things as if they were certainties only to have to acknowledge that its judgment was questionable, says Wenzel, “can cause people to lose faith in the public health system.”

When you think about it, many of the Obama administration’s “scandals” have been failures of competence. The Secret Service let a man leap over the White House fence and get into the White House. The Veterans Health Administration covered up unconscionable delays in treating veterans. The error-ridden rollout of the Obamacare website was a nightmare for people trying to sign up for health insurance. The Republican right takes it as an article of faith that the national government can’t do anything right. Problems like these only help promote that idea.

And now comes the C.D.C. — the most trusted agency in government — thrust in a role for which it was designed: advising us and protecting us from a potential contagion. With every new mistake, it becomes, in the public eye, just another federal agency that can’t get it right.