Greta: Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox is not a terrorist, she deserved respect

Greta: Kaci Hickox is not a terrorist, she deserved respect

'Off the Record,' 10/27/14: Kaci Hickox is a brave nurse who volunteered to help those dying from Ebola and stop the disease from further spreading. She didn't deserve to be treated like a criminal by a panic-stricken NJ government.

By Greta Van Susteren

Let's' all go "Off the Record" for a minute. Kaci Hickox is not a terrorist. She is not a shoe bomber. She is a nurse who went to Sierra Leone to help people who are dying from Ebola and also trying to stop Ebola from spreading.

She risked her life. She obviously has a big heart or she would not be doing this type of work. Now, I have been to refugee camps, and even to cholera camps. Those volunteers work 24/7 in the worst possible conditions. My guess when nurse Hickox landed at Newark airport, she was really worn out physically and mentally. No doubt had flown all night, and then she was greeted by a dysfunctional and panic-stricken government. Instead of being thanked for the help in risking her life, she was treated like a criminal, taken into custody.

Not much respect. Yeah, she got mad. Do you blame her? I blame President Obama and to a lesser degree, Governor Chris Christie. Had nurse Hickox been treated with the respect she was due instead of being treated like a terrible person with the plague, I bet she would not have gotten mad. She may have understood the panic.

And by the way, why the panic? Well, President Obama gets a good share of that blame. He didn't do his job. He sat on his hands and ignored the World Health Organization's warning on Ebola last March, and he ignored them again in August.

If President Obama was doing his job, he would have put strong rules and policies in effect to meet the predictable crisis. Instead, we have chaos. That is what Nurse Hickox walked into when she got off that plane. That's my "Off the Record" comment tonight.