Bill Clinton: Enough of the Ebola 'Blame Game'

President Bill Clinton has called for lawmakers and other political finger-pointers to tone down their rhetoric over the handling of the Ebola crisis, and urged them to put their heads together to work for a solution, CNN reported.

"I have been especially dismayed in the last few days by people who don't know a lick about it are frantically trying to fill certain elements in the media with its blame game over the Ebola crisis," Clinton said as he spoke in his home state of Arkansas on Sunday, calling for unity.

"So, what we all need to do is do what we all do best every time a tornado strikes. We need to settle down, figure out what the challenges are, and solve them together," Clinton said.

His remarks came as the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where one man died and two nurses became infected by the deadly virus, took out a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to apologize to the community for "mistakes" in what some think has been a mishandling of the outbreak, NBC News noted.

Clinton said that the Texas health care center "is a really fine hospital as far as we know" and allowed that perhaps it was "not quite ready" to handle the Liberian patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, who died on Oct. 8 and whose virus has spread to two nurses who closely cared for him and who remain quarantined out of state, CNN noted.

The former president, whose own foundation is sponsoring health workers in Liberia where thousands have died, also bolstered the work of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has come under fire for what some see as a confused message and tepid response as U.S. Ebola cases were developing.

Clinton said the CDC's only misstep was in allowing a nurse, Amber Vinson, who is now being treated for Ebola, to fly from Dallas to Ohio to make wedding arrangements, telling her such air travel was safe although she had been exposed, CNBC noted.

"They say if it wasn't for the CDC it would be 100 times worse than it is," Clinton said.

He called for unity in working on the crisis, CNN noted. "We need to save every life we can and prevent this thing from coming to America. That's what we need to do."

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