I was hoping he'd nominate Anita Hill.

that would have forced Unca Clarance to retire from the bench early cause there's no way in hell he'd work with Anita and have to see her on the bench every day court's in session.

LOL

Just my guess

In this case, I think Rahm suggested Gupta until someone else in the White House reminded the POTUS of Gupta's Epic Failure on TV, when a media personality with no medical cred thoroughly handed Gupta his ass.

You can't have a doctor who can't defend himself against a documentary filmmaker, and the filmmaker wins the battle.

________________________________

You go from a Doctor who plays one on TV (Gupta) to a Real One (Benjamin).

Being Surgeon General means that you actually have to answer medical questions. Sanjay Gupta got his ass handed to him on National TV when Michael Moore's documentary, “Sicko” came out and Gupta tried to debunk what Moore's documentary reported.

It was EPIC FAIL, and Gupta became a laughing stock that didn't quite get back his credibility after Moore chewed him up and spat him out.

I think the POTUS got a lil' star struck and Michelle told him to get the stardust out of his eyes and pick a REAL DOCTOR. LOL

I can already see the white Republican establishment giving her a hard time about the sibling dying of the AIDS related illness and the dad dying of diabetes, etc. They are now asking that we “own” our health problems and take responsibility, which is fine, but in many of our communities, the odds are stacked against us with clever liquor ads, an abundance of fast food, etc.
And I'm sure that Ann Coulter or some other bobble head will pick on this woman's size as well.

It was bashing her because she said God was the reason she was able to become a MD. after reading that thread I'm almost through with Democratic Underground. i mentioned the DU thread is kind of nasty so if anyone whats me to remove this post I will.

Nominate JJP for: Best Group Blog
Best Political/News Blog
Best Blog

http://www.blackweblogawards.com/categories/

LOL@ patients feeding her and making her fat.

Major props to Peter Jennings. He is so missed for his excellence in journalism.

Surgeon General Nominee Was World News Tonight’s Person of the Week in 1995
July 13, 2009 11:45 AM

On June 2, 1995, the late great Peter Jennings profiled Dr. Regina Benjamin, whom President Obama nominated as his Surgeon General nominee, as the World News Tonight Person of the Week.

Here’s the script:

PETER JENNINGS, at anchor desk: Finally this evening, our Person of the Week. We were attracted to this person because she so clearly represents the notion that for some people serving one's fellow citizen is such a gratifying calling that neither fame nor wealth is a satisfactory substitute. We find such a person in the deep South.

Taped spot:

DR REGINA BENJAMIN (interview): It's the best thing in the world. Patients come up, hug you and bring you cakes and shrimp and seafood and make you fat.

JENNINGS (Narration): Dr Regina Benjamin on the wonderful moments in the life of a country doctor. She practices medicine where it is needed badly — Bayou La Batre, a sleepy fishing village on Alabama's Gulf Coast that is coming alive again as the shrimping season begins again.

BENJAMIN: The people are real, genuine, hardworking. They're proud people. They make a living the best they can on shrimp boats. They, unfortunately, are too poor to pay their medical bills at times.

JENNINGS: Such is the life of a country doctor needed by people who are sometimes too poor to pay.

BENJAMIN: Some people call it the working poor. But they are the people that's trying to do the right thing. They fall between the cracks.

JENNINGS: In the village, where they made the movie Forrest Gump, they have learned to depend on Regina Benjamin. She came here right out of med school. The National Health Service paid part of her tuition with the understanding she would have to work for three years in rural America, where there is a serious shortage of primary care. Dr Benjamin came to Bayou La Batre and stayed.

BENJAMIN: Sometimes it's very frustrating. Sometimes I can do everything that the textbooks taught me and school taught me and then patients can't buy their medicine. And it's all for nothing.

JENNINGS: She stays, she says, because she is needed. She discovered that the federal government would provide partial funding to rural clinics and so she opened her own. And in this era of big money medicine, her patients put her in an earlier age. After all, she makes house calls. The Seaman family doesn't know how they'd get by without her. Every week she comes to check in on Lagatha and Faron, both of whom are in advanced stages of muscular dystrophy.

PATIENT: The way I look at it, nowadays the way things is you ain't got nobody that really is- well, I ain't saying they ain't concerned, but some of them is and some of them ain't. And she's one that's
concerned about it, you know.

JENNINGS: Dr Benjamin's influence — she is 38 now — extends beyond Bayou La Batre. She's served on state medical boards lobbying for rural health care. And small communities across the nation telephone and write her trying to find better ways to deal with their own health care crisis. She tries to make time for all of them, but not too much time. You see, her patients come first. She has been caring for 74 year old Arnold Dolan for eight years.

BENJAMIN to Dolan: You don't look like a man who has cancer.

ARNOLD DOLAN: It feels more like home coming here than it do going to a doctor's office, that's what I mean. If you don't have faith to come to a doctor — You can go to a doctor and if you don't have no faith in him, why you might as well stay at home. And she'll help you. She has me.

BENJAMIN: It feels good when you help someone, when you make them smile, when you make a difference in their lives, when you stop the hurt. And you sleep well at night. And to me, that's the best reward. If I had to go purchase that through a mail order catalogue or something, that's what I'd buy.

End of taped spot.

JENNINGS at anchor desk: And so we choose Dr Regina Benjamin, because as one of her patients said, she wants to help people more than she wants to make a bunch of money. Now we know they still do make doctors that way. It's nice to meet one. That's our report on World News Tonight. I'm Peter Jennings.