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Please file this in the “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” bin. As reported in the media over this past week, Kaci Hickox, a highly trained nurse who had gone to the West African nation of Sierra Leone to work with Doctors Without Borders in caring for Ebola patients, returned to the US at Newark Liberty Airport and was placed in mandatory quarantine pursuant to an order from New Jersey Governor Chris “A Bridge Too Far” Christie. Ms. Hickox had the misfortune to arrive on the same day Christie and New York Governor Andrew “What Have I Done For Me Lately” Cuomo announced the mandatory 21-day quarantine policy for healthcare workers arriving at Newark Liberty and Kennedy International Airports from West Africa who had had contact with Ebola patients.

Ms. Hickox exhibited no symptoms of Ebola. Though isolated in rather primitive conditions in an unheated plastic tent with a portable toilet, she still had her iPhone and wasted little time in reaching out to friends, family and the media. She protested her “incarceration” and threatened to sue.

“First of all, I don’t think he (Christie) is a doctor, and second of all, he’s never laid eyes on me,” she stated.

Ever sensitive to past media portrayals of his bullying demeanor, Christie relented and allowed Hickox to return by car to her Maine home on Monday. Once there, Nurse Kaci immediately ran into problems with that state’s health department. She was again ordered into mandatory quarantine, this time in her home. Her response was unequivocal defiance, culminating Thursday when she left her home to take a one-hour bicycle ride with her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Governor Paul “Satchel” LePage announced his intention to find legal means to enforce her detention.

Hickox raised questions about the constitutionality of the actions by both states, and about the science behind the policy. She threatened legal action against Maine. There may be a valid legal argument her lawyers can make, and it would appear, given public statements by qualified medical experts, that the science is on her side. That said, I am more fascinated by the actions of the two governors, both Republicans. LePage, with low approval ratings, is in a tough race for re-election next Tuesday, so his grandstanding to capitalize on the public’s fear is Politics 101. Christie has Presidential aspirations, so he also sees the Ebola scare has an opportunity to make some political hay.

But this is why you simply must love politicians: Scrape away the ideology, the bluster and the corny rhetoric, and it’s all about the politics. Here we have two Republicans, nominal champions of small government, using the power of the government to intrude into a citizen’s- a courageous citizen, a hero in some renditiions- life. And before you call me cynical, are you aware of any journalist asking either of these gentlemen if they were acting purely in the public interest and not merely burnishing their images? With the media working overtime to promote the Ebola fear, it is unimaginable that any pol worth his salt would ignore the opportunity.

That’s not cynical, it’s good politics. Who cares if we deprive a citizen of her freedom? It is only for twenty-one days.