Say Anything Blog

Well, at least he’s an actual doctor as opposed to Obama’s pick for the CIA who hasn’t worked a day in the intelligence field in his life.

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer…

The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama’s White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.

Michelle Malkin compares this to nominating Judge Judy for the Supreme Court, but I’m not sure that’s an apt comparison.  The Surgeon General, frankly, isn’t all that important a position.  He or she is essentially the President’s mouthpiece on health issues.

Of course, in this modern age of nanny statism where managing the public’s health is an important priority for the big government types on the left (and some on the right like Mike “National Smoking Ban” Huckabee), the Surgeon General is a key appointment.  Because he or she will set the national tone for neo-prohibitionist efforts to stop us from enjoying things like junk food, tobacoo and sugary drinks.

Yuval Levin explains:

The tone of surgeon-general reports makes for a telling case study in the way health has usurped the place of virtue in America’s public vocabulary. Public health is the only remaining language in which to speak of vice — an old-fashioned word that once would have been the obvious way to refer to, say, smoking and drinking. The self-righteousness that colors the crusade against obesity, smoking, and other modern sins is as near as the Left gets to religion, and the surgeon general fills the role of oracle or prophet.

Because it’s not like it’s a free country where we can eat and drink and generally live our lives as healthy or as unhealthy as we want or anything.