Posted on 01/06/2009 11:52:26 AM PST by BGHater
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama's White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.
The Michigan-born son of Indian and Pakistani parents, Gupta has always been drawn to health policy. He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. His appointment would give the administration a prominent official of Southwest Asian descent and a skilled television spokesman.
Gupta, who hosts "House Call" on CNN, has discussed the job offer with his bosses at CBS and CNN to make sure he could be released from his contractual obligations, the sources said.
His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Well, I am not going to roll over and die on this subject....I don’t care if Obama was elected. What he wants to do with electronic records alone is going to be Big Brother at its worst.....
Fair enough, and kudos to you to continue your efforts. Again, I can’t direct my displeasure at Dr Gupta. I am disgusted only at the voting public who elected Obama.
Oh, I gotcha. Obama was elected so we should all just shut up and go stand in line for our medical care.
I don’t think so. I might not have much power, but I don’t intend to just shut up about it. No matter how much a Freeper wants to yell at me in red.
I feel like that kid in The Sixth Sense......everywhere I look.....I see Obama voters..... ;)
Were you REALLY expecting Obama to appoint some one pro-life, pro-guns, pro-military, pro-tax-cuts, pro-individual responsibility? If yes, let us smoke that stuff together!
The discussion here is whether Dr Sanjay Gupta is qualified. Do you have any reasons to prove he is unqualified? Do you see anything in our constitution which says he can not be appointed? I am thrilled Obama did not pick that lady who advocated teaching kids masturbation. I may not agree with Gupta’s political leanings but I can see he is intelligent, educated, experienced, well travelled throughout the world, has excellent communication skills. Great pick by Obama.
If I read out constitution right, the Surgeon General can not make laws all by himself. It is up to the congress and the president to instigate socialized health care or anything else. You should be venting at the congress and the voters, not Dr Gupta.
Of course the Surgeon General can’t make laws! But it sure helps to have someone of “authority” to help you push your own Universal Health Care Agenda, approved by the Surgeon General!
I’ll give him this...At least Gupta has a medical degree from somewhere and is or has been a practicing physician. *I* have more time in law enforcement that Leon Panacea does!
There are nine directors of NIH who are eminently qualified, most of whom have served for over 20 years. Why NOT one of them? You know nothing. I wonder why you are so excited about this.
I did not pick Gupta. It was the president elect. Why am I excited? Because I have seen his work on TV and he possesses superior communication skills, which is what the SG job is all about. Much better than some bland and boring older but qualified person. Those kind put me to sleep. Like I said, we could have had a much worse pick from Obama.
Also, what makes you think Obama would pick some one which makes YOU happy? Most likely you are not his voting block, and neither am I.
I think you mean voting “bloc”, BunnySlippers
It is. And part of the job also entails policy making for nationwide disease/injury prevention, as well as responding to potential biowarfare attacks. If you remember the Hanta Virus outbreak in New Mexico and Arizona back in 1993/1994, USPHS was out in front in bringing it under control and discovering what kind of virus was at work.
The old coot Dr. on Fox would have been a better choice.
SAid better that I
“[We’ve] spent the past eight years calling the left a bunch of immature, delusional a-holes for the way the treated Reagan and Bush. Now [we’re] going to become immature, delusional a-holes because a Democrat is in office. In other words, [we’re] becoming what [we] loathe. What’s the point?
Sanjay Gupta is a know-nothing {bleep}hole
Agreed!!! WTF is Obama doing??? Nothing but a royal carpet to pharmaceuticals! Well folks......so much for any changes!!! Status quo as usual!!! I do believe the New World Order is on track folks!!! Step right up and get your mandatory genetically altered flu vaccine!! Keep eating all the aspertain/ melamine/ mad cow/e-coli/samonella/pestiside/mosanto-fied/fructose altered food products you can get!!!Let us continue to depopulate society through all the toxins via all industries and sterilize all male species human or animal. Folks this all will make $$$$$$$$$$ for the chosen!!! Step right up and pick your number!!! And yes, Obama, continue the war machine so the drug trade can blossom 100 fold and all those pharmaceuticals can have a free testing ground- the war field. Yep,....Bush/neo-cons are picking who is on Obamas team!!!!
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F{bleep}ING KIDDING ME.
This makes me furious. Obama's health care plan is a joke, and he will have a shill for it.
I saw him arguing with Michael Moore on CNN over universal health care It was ridiculous. Gupta even admitted that we needed more universal health care, but took the time to argue with Michael Moore about minor inaccuracies in his movie anyway (thus doing the best to undermine Michael Moore, if you ask me). What a really bad choice.
Indeed. Michael Moore would make a better Surgeon General.
Bad choice, IMO. Gupta is a hack and is in the pocket of Big Pharma.
That idiot? AWFUL choice. Is this a joke? Please tell me it is...
Sanjay everf{bleep}ing GUPTA for Surgeon General?!? THAT pathetic celebrity corporate hack? Am I concerned about these signs, almost all of them bad? Yes, very much so. I am trying not to go off the deep end, here. Obama has yet to govern for one day, and I will certainly withold my final judgements until at least a year has passed. But this whole pre-inaugural period, almost ALL of it, is looking bad. If these early signs are indicative, there is no way Obama can restore our System of Check and Balances to health and vigor. I find myself telling myself the same bull{bleep} I did during the "Keep the Powder Dry" years. It MUST be a double-super-secret plan! It is really brilliant strategy masquerading as nonsensical corporo-celebro BULL{bleep}. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. I am getting a very queasy feeling. God, let me be wrong!
You're totally kidding, right? I know so many doctors who would be a million times better than some surgeon-fly-boy-turned-CNN-corporate-shill. Gack!!
Could he possibly find anyone worse?
Dean. Dr Howard Dean. come rescue us! s{bleep}t Obama. You are going tooo far!
I think I'm going to be sick and I'll be SOL with big pharma Gupta at the helm. I guess there's a positive aspect to this in regard Gupta's skill at media whoring. That's about the most positive thing I can say at the moment.
Yeah, I threw up on anther thread about this too
Gupta is a Big Pharma Corporate STOOGE. Obama is well on his way to being a corporate stooge. Sad. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for some to realize this. Wake up children - we've been had.
Sky Gupta, sounds like a indian airline.
CC
seems like a reasonable question.
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