Day: January 6, 2009

The report that Barack Obama has asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN to consider the position of Surgeon General in the new administration is a very exciting development.

Dr Gupta worked as a White House Fellow in 1997 under Hillary Clinton and has gained great credibility as a neurosurgeon and in his medical reporting for CNN over the past number of years.  He is a great communicator who would be an asset in promoting President Obama’s health care initiatives in tandem with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle. 

Gupta would raise the stature and dignity of the Surgeon General’s office, which has often been undistinguished in its leadership in recent years.  The promotion of stem cell research and the continued fight against AIDS would be priorities, as well as Gupta’s fight on CNN against obesity.

Again, Obama has done a fantastic job in picking his cabinet and top advisers and experts.  The US government will gain by Gupta’s appointment at the same time that CNN will lose a great advocate of health care education!

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has made a wise, but surprising decision to pass by the opportunity for the Senate seat of Mel Martinez, who has announced his retirement.

While it is acknowledged that he was a popular and often effective governor, the possibility of another Bush in high office and possibly running for the Presidency was a horrible thought to many. 

It is likely that Jeb felt that the country was drowning in Bush exhaustion and has decided it is better at this time to pursue financial advantage which would be lost if he ran for and served in the US Senate.  It is certainly a disappointment to his father, former President George H W Bush, who just expressed this past Sunday the hope that his younger son would seek to get back into politics.

I don’t think we can assume that Jeb will never seek the Presidency, as he is still young (55) and theoretically could run for that position as a former governor out of office seeking the opportunity.  After all, many of the presidential candidates in primaries and even in the fall campaigns for President in the past 40 years have sought the job while out of office–including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.  So I doubt we have heard the last of Jeb Bush in public life.