The Political Whore

President Obama today unveiled Dr. Regina Benjamin today as his choice for Surgeon General.

A rural Alabama family physician, Benjamin made some headlines rebuilding her nonprofit Gulf Coast medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Obama said during the news conference announcing the pick, “For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what’s best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients.”

Benjamin calls the job a physician’s dream. “I cannot change my family’s past,” she said. “I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation’s health care and our nation’s health. I want to be sure that no one falls through the cracks as we improve our health care system.”

Read more about Benjamin below the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe the best part of the story about Republican state committeewoman Carol Carter’s suspension for sending around a racist joke via email: the comment in her follow-up mea culpa about the eight folks to whom she sent the email, at least one of whom had the temerity to forward it:

“I am also sorry to learn,” Carter opines, “that some of these persons are not real team players.”

Carter’s timing was especially unfortunate, as Janet Zink’s story in the Times points out: She sent the email on Friday, “the day the Republican party announced the selection of its first African-American chairman, Michael Steele.”

The Carter flap follows in the wake of two previous instances of GOP racist email dunderheadedness, thanks to jokesters Al Austin (former state party finance chair) and David Storck (former county chair). Read the full text of the latest witticism (which is based on the assumption that Hurricane Katrina is a surefire laugh-getter) after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »