And, warming up in the HHS bullpen, we have . . . . . . . .. . . . . .Bill Frist!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Seriously, this would be an excellent opportunity for Obama to throw a bone to the progressives who supported him with a choice they can get behind for HHS.

Change! Hope! No more bs incremental ism! No more pharma panderers! Someone who will work for the American people and not for a future job in the healthcare industry!

[NashVegas]

1. WTF?

Please tell me you're being facetious.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. I certainly hope I'm being facetious!

It'd be a real kick in the ass if I wasn't!

[NashVegas]

6. Well ...

Considering that Frist probably won't be going back to HCA in the future ... it leaves some room for wondering.

:hi:

[stillcool]

4. I think maybe it's a game...

but you might need a tv to play?

[geek tragedy]

3. What about Trent Lott? n/t

[truebrit71]

5. That's a fine choice. Another stunning example of our new President's bi-partisan determination...

..to piss off the base that got him elected, and nominate people that have worked AGAINST the very departments to which they are being appointed...

I am completely missing the point on the whole Richardson/Gregg thing...God alone only knows who President Obama will selcet now...hence the Frist suggestion...If Fred Phelps isn't available of course...

[bdamomma]

7. we need Howard Dean.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. Of course we do. But whether we'lll get him is another matter.

Obama has reached out so far to everyone BUT liberals and progressives with his choices (except for Labor). Please, please, please, please, couldn't we just get Dr. Dean? I would trust him more than any other person on the planet for the changes we need in healthcare.

[tuckessee]

9. Hold on to your kitties!! n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. If Obama did that, he'd lose the cat vote forever.

[KamaAina]

11. He is, after all, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of telemedicine

remember, he was able to make a definitive diagnosis of Terri Schiavo with nothing but a video feed. :sarcasm:

[mod mom]

12. Matt Tiabbi called Daschle second only to Frist as "biggest whore for the health care industry":

When Barack Obama announced in early December that he had selected Tom Daschle to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services as well as his "health care policy czar," Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi -- who had spent several months studying the inner workings of the 2006 Congress in order to profile its limitless corruption -- wrote the following reaction on his blog:

I know several reporters who are either officially or unofficially on "Whore Factor" duty, watching the rapidly kaleidoscoping transition picture and keeping track of the number of known whores and ghouls who for some reason have been invited to befoul the atmosphere of the next administration.

Obviously there has been some dire news on that front already. When Obama picked Tom Daschle to be the HHS Secretary, I nearly shit my pants. In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. True, he is probably only the second-biggest whore for the health care industry in American politics — the biggest being doctor/cat-torturer Bill Frist, whose visit to South Dakota on behalf of John Thune in 2004 was one of the factors in ending Daschle's tenure in the Senate.
But in picking Daschle — who as an adviser to the K Street law firm Alston and Bird has spent the last four years burning up the sheets with the nation's fattest insurance and pharmaceutical interests — Obama is essentially announcing that he has no intention of seriously reforming the health care industry. .
-snip

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/01/daschle/index.html

[spanone]

13. you've got to be kidding...frist family has made their fortunes fleecing medicare

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. I certainly HOPE I'm kidding. nt

[spanone]

15. i knew you were....he's a criminal of the lowest standards

[Hubert Flottz]

16. The only person I could think of that the GOP might like more

would be Dr. Josef Mengele. Rush's kind of guy!