Appointments and Impossible Standards

As inauguration nears President-elect Obama and his team must confront the fact that they will soon become the Obama administration and actually take the reigns of power in Washington. As a result of they race is on to fill appoint candidates for remaining unfilled positions. True not all positions need to be filled before and administration takes office but it's probably kind of a nice thing. In any case two potential appointments caught my eye in the last week, they weren't necessarily high profile but I think the deserve some scrutiny.

The first is news (Washington Post) that Sanjay Gupta, yes of CNN, is being considered for the position of Surgeon General. My first reaction was "Ugh, Really?"  I then read in several places that the position of Surgeon General is really more of a figure head who's main role is to use the bully pulpit to raise awareness about health issues, habits, etc.  That's all well and good but I don't know Gupta has always struck me as an elitist and somewhat cocky.  Of course I suppose being a Neurosurgeon probably does that to a person, "Yeah that's right I just opened up your scull and operated on your brain...so there."  I suppose one could argue that someone who is frequently on TV is a good personality and pseudo famous in a way might garner a little attention for the issues that person chose to raise up to the American people.  The problem with all of this is that Gupta is on record being generally flippant about the state of our health care system and arguably hostile to the idea that we even need universal health care.  This is unfortunate because it cast doubt over whether Mr. Gupta would use his platform to help further the case that we need universal health care in this country, and let there be no doubt that we do indeed. You can watch the YouTube clip and judge for yourself but it's troubling to me at least and I'm not the only one.

Then comes news by way of a Slashdot article that Obama has nominated one of the RIAA's more loyal lawyers to a top Justice Department position.  The CNet article cited in the original Slashdot article paints an even more ominous picture.  It seems to me that in a time when we are dealing with things like bandwidth caps, assaults on net neutrality and online freedom, an perhaps most relevant a completely broken intellectual property apparatus, handing an easy one to the RIAA and its allies I don't know just makes me sigh very heavily.  I suppose you could argue well okay he was just supporting his clients and I know maybe that is the case but again just as a matter of fact it rubs me the wrong way.

Look I know and realize that Obama isn't going to be perfect and I'm certainly not (and don't, despite what my friends would tell you) going to agree with everything Obama and his administration due over the next, at least, four years but I feel like I need to point out the things that make me sigh, cock my head and ask "Really?...oooook."  Then again Obama has an impossibly high standard to reach in my book and that is Jeb Bartlet.  I watched seven seasons of West Wing and you sir are no Jeb Bartlet.  We all have different standards that we'll use to judge the incoming administration but I have to imagine given the last eight years, 7% unemployment, and the laundry list of other problems facing our country, its people, and indeed the planet, the standards are going to be impossibly high no matter the basis for them.  Good Luck Barry, you wanted it, you got it.