Obama needs to build his leadership root directory first, then flesh it out through the outline he creates with his first appointments.
And Sebelius should be well up on that list.
The case for Sebelius at HHS
From today's Wichita Eagle;
"A potential Obama cabinet projected in June on the Daily Kos Web site slotted Sebelius in at secretary of Health and Human Services.
It's not a bad guess, said Mel Kahn, a professor of political science at Wichita State University.
Health care reform is expected to be a key goal of the Obama administration and Sebelius has strong credentials in that area, he said.
Kahn said that in her previous role as Kansas insurance commissioner, Sebelius established herself as someone who could stand up to powerful insurance interests.
She blocked a planned merger between the for-profit Anthem Insurance Co. of Indiana and the member-owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas. Sebelius also has fought for universal health coverage for children, a prime goal of Obama's health plan."
http://www.kansas.com/...
...if you look at the last three sentences of this excerpt, there-in lies an efficient encapsulation of our impending health care struggle during the next administration.
We will watch the private sector investors fight with all their unlimited resources to keep every penny of their over-priced profit, and working just as hard to retain millions of desperate health-care consumers (read; suckers) who actually believe their expensive HMO medical coverage will take care of them no matter what.
Our children have become their worst victims. If you ever bought a late-night bottle of baby tylenol from a convenience store, you know how willing they are to use our most precious and dependent loved-ones to part us from our hard-earned wages.
Sebelius has considerable experience dealing with these issues, that are at the crux of the health care maelstrom.
As our governor, she has consistently used her veto pen to protect the general public, and our children in particular, from special interests and their greasy-palmed surrogates in a mean-spirited, right-wing Republican-dominated state legislature.
She deserves recognition for that alone.
But as our insurance commissioner, she may well have proven where her talents would best be applied.
Kathleen Sebelius has been a top-notch governor, and we don't really want to lose her in Kansas. But the Obama administration will need the best and the brightest to fulfill it's lofty mandate, and she belongs on that list in her best capacity, and that very well might be at HHS, where she's fought that dragon before...
We don't want to see her go, but we are glad to know that she does so for the most noble of all purposes.