President Barack Obama meets with members of his Cabinet at the White House in Washington, D.C., Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (left) and behind, partially visible is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (behind, partially visible).
There’s a fine line at the White House between hand-washing and hand-wringing.
When it comes to swine flu, President Barack Obama is trying to strike the right balance between protecting public and economic health. That’s resulted in some doublespeak and spin, evidence of the inextricable ties between a looming epidemic and a listing economy.
Obama has been out front in urging people to wash their hands, cover their mouths while coughing and stay home if sick. Still, there’s been a lot of anxious backing and filling going on behind him.
Overreact to the swine flu scare, and risk being accused of misspending public money and frightening consumers and travelers during the worst recession most Americans have endured.
Underreact, and take the chance of looking indecisive and out of touch if the outbreak turns into a deadly pandemic – now or in a possible rebound in the fall.
Former President George W. Bush learned that lesson the hard way with Hurricane Katrina.
Even what it’s called has political and economic overtones.
Say it’s swine flu and alienate hog farmers and pork processors. They note, correctly, that it can’t be acquired by eating pork products. The term also inflames Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork.
Call it the “Mexican flu,” as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done, and Mexicans are offended.
The fact that Mexico is the epicenter has fired up outspoken conservatives who favor tighter border controls and cracking down on illegal immigration.
For now, Obama is navigating a careful middle course, dispensing common-sense advice, promising vigilance and reassuring people that he’s on the job.
Obama used his weekly radio address Saturday to assure listeners that “we are taking all necessary precautions in the event that the virus does turn into something worse.”
He’s sent an army of health professionals to brief the public and Congress to try to provide clear answers about what the administration is now inoffensively calling the “H1N1 virus.” Administration health and homeland security officials were booked on all the major broadcast and cable news shows Sunday.
“We have to make sure that we recognize that how we respond – intelligently, systematically, based on science and what public health officials have to say – will determine in large part what happens,” Obama told a news conference Wednesday, on his 100th day in office.
But on the 101st day, Vice President Joe Biden did the exact opposite.
He raised the anxiety level by suggesting people avoid airplanes, subways and other tight quarters. Period.
Going much further than what Obama or his top health advisers have advocated, Biden blurted out a remark that required quick damage control – at a time when the administration is trying to get Americans to buy houses, go shopping and take vacations to awaken a comatose economy.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said he was merely giving “the same advice the administration is giving all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico.”
But Biden wasn’t just talking about Mexico.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested with a faint smile that it didn’t matter what Biden said – but what “he meant to say.”
Frightening people unnecessarily could take a heavy toll on the travel and tourism industries. The quick negative reaction from business to Biden’s words underscored the delicate balance.
Here’s Obama’s dilemma: If the death rate from swine flu begins to climb frighteningly and there is a global pandemic, then Biden’s suggestion will sound less like a gaffe – and more like sound advice.
The 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory disease and the 2005 outbreak of avian flu stand as a warning to the world that humans could again be infected from a runaway virus of animal origins. And so much about this flu is unknown.
“It’s a rapidly evolving situation filled with uncertainty,” said Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
He said it’s still not clear why many more people have died in Mexico than in the United States.
The decision to give the flu the neutral name of H1N1 may have been scientifically and politically correct. But it won’t calm a worried public, suggested Wayne Fields, director of American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on presidential rhetoric.
“I don’t think anybody’s more assured by a name that’s made up of letters and numbers than one that’s got a hog in its title,” Fields said.
Still, he gives Obama high marks for coolheaded oratory. “If you do something and nothing happens, you’re in hot water. And if you do nothing and something happens, you’re in hot water. So the need for moderation at this point is pretty important,” Fields said.
For Obama, it was just one more ball to juggle along with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran, auto bankruptcies and rising joblessness.
“For a president, life isn’t a cabaret. It’s a high-wire act. And the ones who get it right get re-elected,” said Stephen Hess, a political veteran who worked in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations and is now a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Tom Raum covers politics and economics for The Associated Press.
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On the Net
CDC swine flu site: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu