Ebola and Moses's Rod

This Ebola thing is a very serious matter.  As far as the practice of quarantining goes, I am most concerned over just what constitutes the proper balance between individual civil rights and liberties on one hand, and protecting the public on the other hand.  I will disclose that when my son was away at summer camp some years ago, there was an infectious disease incident that necessitated the quarantine of my son and his bunkmates for the better part of a week, and necessitating the scrubbing of Visiting Day (and disrupting the campers' families' plans big time).  But there was regular medical monitoring, and, after all indications showed negative, the quarantine was lifted.  Inconvenient as it was, proper balance was, in my opinion, achieved.

Though I am not without empathy for Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was placed in quarantine after returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, neither am I ready to hail her as a heroine. 

Kaci has lawyered up and got the worst of the quarantine restrictions lifted.  One of her lawyers is Norman Siegel, a hard-core ACLUnatic who attracts cases and clients from the leftward portion of the political spectrum. 

Kaci is now acting up and making a big kabuki production over her intentions to violate the quarantine imposed upon her.

But the Kaci Hickox Show is a natural and expectable outcome of the Obama administration's undiluted handling of the Ebola epidemic as a political issue and not as a public health issue.  Obama is playing politics.  Politics are trumping the scientific and public health concerns.  The various state governors are playing politics.  The CDC is playing politics.  Why wouldn't Kaci also play her political cards?

But the dynamic of Moses's Rod is now at work.  The Obama Administration has fashioned a rod with which to beat the public.  The rod is turning into a serpent, and may well bite the Administration apparatchiks in the toochas.