Yeah, Christie’s still an arrogant jerk.

This, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with modern conservatism – New Jersey governor Chris Christie, telling Matt Lauer that he knows more about Ebola than the CDC. From Politics Today (video at link):

Christie appeared on the Today Show Tuesday morning to defend his actions and reiterate his support for mandatory 21-day quarantines of travelers from West Africa that may appear to show symptoms or have knowingly been exposed to Ebola patients. Essentially, this means any health worker returning back to the United States after caring for those infected with the Ebola virus will be required to spend 21 days in quarantine. A number of experts and the Centers for Disease Control have stated that not only are these mandatory quarantines unnecessary, they will likely be counter-productive. They feel that the best way to contain a potential Ebola outbreak is to treat it where it is currently spreading. To force quarantines on doctors and nurses disincentives them to travel and potentially causes the problem to get worse in those countries.

When host Matt Lauer — who was admirably tough on the governor throughout the interview — brought this up to Christie, the governor basically said he knew more than the CDC and experts and that eventually they will come around to his way of thinking.

“We want stricter things than what they have been willing to (propose) and now they’re incrementally … moving toward our position. This is because they don’t want to admit we’re right and they’re wrong.”

Christie knows about a lot of things – how to punish political enemies, how to suck up to GOP power brokers, how to berate and bully his constituents – but I seriously doubt he knows more about communicable disease than people who have trained all their lives to deal with them.