What I really like about some of the Obama picks for various positions is that they really show he's thinking about what the role of that position ought to be and filling that role, rather than simply finding a progressive version of the type of people who have always filled these positions.

I'm sure some of them won't work out, but his willingness to buck the CW speaks well of him, his team, and his view of the role of the executive branch.

Er, actually America's most famous (real) doctor is Dr. Phil.

If you asked me to name a doctor, I'd pick Atul Gawande, New Yorker columnist and author of the collections "Better" and "Complications." Both are must-reads. I was hoping he'd have some position in an Obama White House.

Wasn't he the guy that got into the argument with Michael Moore about the facts presented in Sicko? That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me - Moore was 100% in the right on that one IMHO, Gupta was trying to tear him apart for the sake of punching a hippie. Guess I'll have to keep my fingers crossed on this one....

Oh please! Not that douche bag! Gupta is far less interested in advocating good health than he is getting celebrity face time. The nation has an odd god complex for anyone named "Dr.".

Heh, yeah, I thought on reading this, "Oh, the Better guy! Cool!"

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is HOT!

Aasif Mandvi will, one presume, be called into service on tomorrow's Daily Show.

Krugman isn't exactly psyched about Gupta:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/the-trouble-with-sanjay-gupta/

Sigh.
Slicky T.V. McDouchebag, foe of single payer. Krugman is spot on.

Er, actually America's most famous (real) doctor is Dr. Phil.

Dr Phil is not a medical doctor, though. Nor is he a board-licensed psychologist.

Krugman's right on the mark, though: Gupta pretty much epitomises the medical-industrial-media complex.

It's a lazy and disquieting pick if it's meant to have any kind of policy implications, and a superficial one if Gupta's media prominence is meant to make him a useful talking head on public health issues, because you can't separate public health from policy.

Ugh. Talk about a doctor's doctor. The public health folks (the people who get that health is approx. 15% about health care, and the rest is poverty, environment, housing, job stress, racism, and lots of other yucky stuff that can't be addressed by medical care) must be going nuts. The only conceivable reason to appoint Gupta to this post, other than his stature as someone who can communicate with the public as Ezra suggests, is to buy off the physicians in the coming battle over universal health coverage -- which will entail some limitations to physician autonomy if costs are to be kept under control. Problem is, the doctors can't stand this guy either, because he's perceived as a media whore. So it's really not clear what this buys us.

Shorter Ezra: Gupta is a great choice because he's got name recognition.

This is pretty weak from someone who considers himself a health care wonk.

Other than his popularity, I have no idea why he's such a good pick, and apparently neither does Ezra.

I like Dr. Dean Odell a lot. He has an AM radio show. Or at least he used to, back when I used to listen to AM radio. A straight talking, no-nonsense compassionate doctor.

Dr. Andrew Weil would have been an awesome pick.

Shorter Ezra: Gupta is a great choice because he's got name recognition.

Shorter Ezra: Gupta is a great choice because he's got name recognition, and the Surgeon General is a symbolic position pretty much designed for an empty medical celebrity.

Besides an aversion to the facts, gupta's real problem in his argument with Moore (as avedon pointed out)was his hostility towards a single payer system. That's the issue for many.

Obama and the Dems aren't going for single payer. I'd love single payer too, but its not happening anytime soon. Please come back to reality my fellow liberals.

Did it ever occur to all you people criticizing this pick that Obama is too smart NOT to have obtained Gupta's assurances with respect to supporting the administration's universal healthcare plans? The fact that Gupta is a media star -- and something of a trusted face on medical issues to middle America -- will be a BIG plus when it comes time to win the vicious PR war that will have to be waged with obstructionist Republicans when the time comes. Harry and Louise, anyone? Heck, the fact that he was arguing with Michael Moore (who was correct on the merits, of course) on CNN is only going to make it tougher for the right wing to paint Gupta as an unreasonable, extremist socialist. I agree with Ezra. This is a great pick.

Ezra, I don't get it. Re the 'debate' between Moore and Gupta, Gupta just flat out lied on camera about the source for his (Gupta's) criticism of Moore.

Are you not aware of this?

I always heard he was a laughing stock as a health columnist. But at least he's only a liar, not a cat-murderer.

Paul Krugman on Gupta.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/the-trouble-with-sanjay-gupta/

Dunno...I would kinda hope that our government's most visible Public Health Spokesperson would have a background in...public health.

I gotta say...I'm massively disappointed with this pick. The PR-guy-on-warning-labels bit is only a tiny fraction of the SG job, and probably the on part Gupta's qualified for.

Even if he's the greatest clinician in the country, that's not what the job is. He has to administrate and lead the Public Health Service and Commissioned Corps, to address and respond to emerging health issues, including epidemics both chronic and acute.

Plus, frankly, association with Hillary's health care policies is not what I'd call a plus (single-payer nut though I am).

Someone yesterday made the analogy, Gupta @ SG :: Judge Judy @ SCOTUS. This is catering to populism at its worst.

Gupta is a corporate shill.

EK needs to stop shilling for Obama. His "health care" proposal is not universal, and is merely a reconfiguring of the same old "for profit" health care system that devotes on 62 cents out of every dollar to providing care (contrast that to medicare, which spends 97 cents of each dollar on care).

Gupta is a corporate shill who will be used to head off the increasing support for true single-payer universal health care. He shilled (and lied) for big Pharma and CNN other adverisers when Sicko came out, and that will be his job for Obama.

At this point can you find any doctor that isn't a corporate shill. The medical device and pharmacutical industries have bought and paid for just about every physician in the country. Maybe Gupta will be less of a shill than most. With that said it would be nice to have a guy who doesn't lie about universal care.

What I constantly see in the left's support for Obama's celebrity/MOR/has-been Cabinet choices is the argument/hope that Obama will wave a magic wand and get long-time self-serving hacks to think great thoughts and do great things.

And I hope this two-bit post gets me the Nobel Prize for literature.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

EK,

Hard to say how disappointing your call on this is. While I don't know Dr. Gupta personally, and, perhaps you do, I do know that he was more than a bit dishonest and condescending in his discussion with Moore re: health care.

That alone, in my mind, barring some repentance that I'm unaware of, should disqualify him. Additionally, I have never really seen much truly substantive work from him on TV or in print.

He's a celebrity. I'll give you that. But, he really does seem like a very shallow and self-indulgent person.

Not my idea of a solid pick for Surgeon General.

I especially like Dr. Gupta's advice recommending fighting mad cow disease with meat thermometers. It will save the country the trouble and expense of inspecting cattle and regulating slaughtering practices.

Dr. Gupta ought to know, he's a brain surgeon (but not a cat killer).

There is something deeply dishonest about the way Dr. Gupta comports himself in his contretemps with Mr. Moore. You can see on his face that he knows he was caught being an establishment flack, purveying conventional wisdom, but he simply cannot do the honorable thing and clear up the fundamental misimpressions that his "journalism" promoted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzAj0pD-HIw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm3UkzMOsnQ

Really shabby stuff.

I'm w/ Weebot. Good analysis of the choice here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/dr_sanjay_gupta_for_surgeon_general_yawn.php

I don't have cable, so I didn't see the Gupta-Moore battle, or know who this Gupta guy is.

So for me, the most famous doctor in America was Howard Dean. Or former Surgeon General Koop.

Gupta is in the tank for the corporate health care industry. Ezra Klein is in the tank for Obama.

The Surgeon General position is important, but it has been seen of late as a factotum of Bush-carrying, science-undermining placeholders. I wrote about health policy, professional nursing and patient advocacy for several years, but I was and am still dismissed out of hand. The audacity of a nurse having an informed and legitimate opinion!

Very few progressives read substantive posts about policy and the decimation of government functions and the public well-being.

I wrote specifically about former Surgeon General Rich Carmona and what he offered during Congressional testimony. It was hair-raising, but it didn’t garner a ripple from progressives. Carmona has excellent emergency preparedness expertise and experience. He testified that he requested to be sent to New Orleans as a Katrina first responder and that he was denied. Gupta never mentioned that.

Gupta, on the other hand, reports advertiser, commercial pharma crap as unbiased health reportage. He stays to a Wall Street Journal, free market, traditional corporate model of healthcare messaging. He is a commercial sell-out, and he also has many undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence that commissioned officers of the USPHS working in the DIHS - the branch that Gupta would be attached to - have been used as agents of abuse and torture on immigrant detainees. The Surgeon General would certainly be obligated to investigate that and report, but no one has. Sec HHS Leavitt has methodically weaponized HHS and used it against the health of the citizenry. DIHS, which was accountable to the USPHS somehow magically migrated to ICA and DHS, and no one is investigating or stopping abusive practices. So not unsurprisingly, people are suffering and dying and no one is doing anything about it.

Gupta has never investigated any Bush/Leavitt/HHS policy or practice. He’s remained silent while the FDA and CDC abdicated their oversight and regulatory responsibilities and imperiled the public safety. For the past eight years, Gupta has never questioned a single thing that the Bush Admin has done.

CNN has even proudly announced that they have repressed all coverage of health policy and health reform since Obama contacted Gupta. The public can not be informed by media who deliberately and willfully withhold vital information.

Carmona would have been a better pick. He has tons of motive and ability to ferret out Bush appointee burrowers, and he knows the who, what, where when and why of the science and regulation that was undermined and where the public safety has been threatened.

His teeth are over bleached.
Must be vanity.

A ha ,I agree with you.It's just going to be awful, terrible, and absolutely dreadful to possibly have a Supreme Court justice who isn't going to decide in favor of the powerful all the time.Nobody ever mentions this when they use this case as a parable of liberal excesses, but when the city threw out the results of that test and didn't promote anyone, what did they do next? The case was in litigation for years, they could hardly abolish their whole org chart while it was pending. Did they have a new test, and if so, who passed it?

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