INEPT EVEN AT SPREADING PANIC.

One of our most esteemed conservative writers approaches the important subject of Ebola:

While disposing of a body in a mass grave, one man in a hazmat suit turns to another and asks, “When did we run out of body bags?” 

“Two days ago.” 

Fortunately, the scene is only from the movie Contagion, though it’s probably close enough to what is going on in parts of West Africa right now.

Surprise, it's National Review legacy pledge Jonah Goldberg, talking about something he understands (a stupid movie) and something he doesn't (everything else, except maybe delis with the best deals on Cheetos and Mom's List of Names of Librul Fascists I Can Use). Boy, I bet West Africa's like that movie Contagion -- not very popular and it stinks, amirite!

After some pro-forma slurs on Gwyneth Paltrow, Goldberg suggests that liberal Hollyweird has been covering for Obama fake-epidemic-wise:

Contagion broke away from the shackles of the genre. Ross Douthat put it well in an essay for National Review, calling it a “pro-establishment thriller.” Government officials, the scientists, even the military were all competent and determined to do the right thing. 

It was a fascinating departure from the speak-truth-to-power cinema of the Bush years and even Hollywood’s paranoia in the Clinton years. (In the movie version of The X-Files, FEMA was a villainous cabal.)...

Given the timing, I think it’s no accident Hollywood produced Contagion. After all, Obama was going to restore faith in government.

Thus were the lofo sheeple lulled into a false sense of security by a liberal disaster movie. But now we know the CDC is stupid because some people in Texas got Ebola.

We now have our own version of Contagion playing out in real time.

From the Wikipedia on Contagion: "The Minnesota National Guard arrives to quarantine the city... Meanwhile, the death toll reaches 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide..." The current Ebola situation in America is more like Terms of Endearment than Contagion.

The disease is different, of course, and so is the response. Still...

Just wait a second and contemplate the Oh For Fuck's Sakeness of that.

...Still, I have little doubt that the real-life players at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health are as well-intentioned as their cinematic versions.

What the fuck does that even mean? That's like saying, "Oprah Winfrey is not really like Lizzie Borden. Still, I'm sure she has nice table manners, just like Lizzie Borden."

But they aren’t nearly as reassuring. They keep telling us they know what can’t happen right up until the moment it happens. They put the theory of their expertise ahead of the facts on the ground...

In other words, unprecedented event is unprecedented, so scientific protocol is worthless and we're all going to die like in that movie. I know some scribble has to occasionally appear under Goldberg's name from time to time, but there are so many wingnuts trying to panic the country with Ebola now that I assume conservative movement leaders take it seriously as a propaganda theme -- aren't they concerned that Goldberg's clowning might spoil it?

UPDATE. In comments, mortimer2000 brings us back to 2006, when Goldberg was telling us to "Give Bush a Break" over Katrina:

And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties... 

Long before Katrina, New Orleans was a dysfunctional city in a state with famously corrupt and incompetent leadership, many of whose residents think that it is the job of the federal government to make everyone whole...

It's not as if he's completely inconsistent -- in both cases, he clearly can't give a shit about the people who are suffering.