Sam Stein’s Argument Against Travel Ban: Helps America but Hurts West Africa

‘If you do a travel ban in that country, people in that country will panic’

Sam Stein's Awful Argument Against Travel Ban: Helps America But Hurts West Africa (Mediaite)

The last time we looked, Barack Obama was President of the United States, not of some other country.  So if a ban on travel into the United States by people from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa would help America, isn't it President Obama's obligation to impose it, even if it might hurt those African countries?

On today's Morning Joe, HuffPo's Sam Stein twice acknowledged that the ban might "help America." Yet he argued against the ban on the grounds that it would hurt West Africa and make it harder to track people fleeing those countries. You sensed Sam's heart wasn't entirely in it, and when he finished Joe Scarborough thanked him, saying he was going to hit Stein's weak offering out of the park, as that SF Giants batter did last night in the ninth.

Scarborough's counter was that there needs to be a two-pronged approach: a travel ban coupled with greatly-increased American efforts to help stop the epidemic in Africa, thus getting the disease under control and quelling panic that could send people fleeing abroad.

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