THINKING ABOUT THE TB GUY

Now ... let's address all of this hysteria over the TB Guy. It turns out that he's an attorney. A personal injury attorney, no less. His name is Andrew Speaker.

Everyone seems to be in a lather over the idea that he endangered an entire plane load of people by coming back to the United States on a Czech airliner.

Methinks we're approaching the point of hysteria here.

According to Speaker, all the time he has been diagnosed with TB he has been interacting with his family, his daughter and his finance, now wife. He had been told repeatedly that he did not present a threat to others. Did they tell him not to travel to Europe? Yes, they did. But Speaker has a tape of these people telling him not to travel to Europe not because he was a threat to others, but because they felt they had to warn him not to travel to cover their own rear ends.

I believe that the bottom line here is that this man felt that his best chance of recovery was to get to that TB hospital in Denver. He also believed that he did not present a contagious threat to others. Doctors had repeatedly told him that he was not contagious and not a treat. Then they tell him that he can't come back home.

Put me in his place... same circumstances ... same promises that he wasn't a threat .. and I'm going to do everything I can to get around the government bureaucracy and get to Denver. The American government would just not be worthy of my trust in this situation. The CDC says now that they were working hard to get him home. Somehow I'm having a hard time believing that.

We need to stop hammering this guy and try to figure out why our great Homeland Security system couldn't keep him out of this country. He was on a no-fly list. His name was on a computer at every border crossing. Yet he got through. Let's study that situation, and leave this guy alone to try to recover from his disease.

Oh ... and before we move on, we need to say this. Andy Speaker is a personal injury lawyer. Turn the situation around just a bit. Let someone who was on that airplane contact him for representation. How long before we would see the lawsuits fly!

Bottom line. The guy has a life-threatening disease. He wanted to get home. He was told that he wasn't a threat to other people. He saw the impossible American government bureaucracy getting in his way. He did what he had to do to protect himself. You would do the same.