In the midst of global worry about the Swine Flu outbreak, which has now spread as far as New Zealand, and is now responsible for at least 149 deaths, it now appears that the Senate will approve Kathleen Sebelius to be Health and Human Services Secretary this morning.
This is news being reported by MSNBC today:
The Senate was set to approve President Barack Obama's nominee for health and human services secretary Tuesday, giving the agency a leader in the midst of the swine flu outbreak.
Morning debate and an afternoon vote were scheduled to confirm Kathleen Sebelius, the two-term Democratic governor of Kansas. She was expected to get the 60 votes needed in the Democratic-led Senate, though perhaps with little margin to spare.
Not a moment too soon. As reported by the New York Times, there have been as many as 152 deaths in Mexico from the outbreak so far, with the potential for many more, especially now that there have been confirmed outbreaks in the US: in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas.
Additionally, there have been cases in countries such as New Zealand, Spain, and Israel that have been confirmed.
Despite these problems, some wingnuts, notably Glen Beck, who claimed that Obama was using the Swine Flu as a means to get Sebelius approved:
Beck and other talking heads were not the only ones who tried to stop Sebelius' nomination from going through. In fact, Sarah Palin's "Team Sarah" organization urged its supporters to mobilize against Kathleen Sebelius as well. HuffPo reports that this message was sent to Team Sarah supporters:
Hi Team!
Today's the day! Our Not on Our Watch! Phone Bank Blast is set for TODAY from 2pm - 4pm ET. Write a note & stick it on your forehead, set your cell phone alarm - do what you have to do to remember to make your calls TODAY!
Our goal is to flood the phone lines of the Senate Finance Committee and make our message heard loud and clear - NO SEBELIUS! Not on Our Watch!
For the complete project information, including the phone numbers of the members of the Senate Finance Committee, visit: http://www.teamsarah.org/... or "gather around the Water Cooler.
Also, if you haven't sent out your postcards or letters yet, it's not too late! Send them out as soon as you can so that they reach the Senate Finance Committee this week.
Fortunately it looks like the Senate has finally capitulated and will approve her this morning.
Too bad it had to come to this in order for that to happen.
However, HHS Secretary is not the only health-related position that needs Senate approval to be filled.
Sebelius would be the first of 20 HHS officials requiring Senate approval to clinch her job, so she'd be getting to work without much of a team. The Senate hasn't acted on Obama's nominees for deputy HHS secretary or commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Obama hasn't even nominated people for other key jobs, including surgeon general and assistant secretary for preparedness and response.
Obama needs to nominate a slew of people to fill these positions, and the sooner, the better. Hopefully he'd face less resistance in getting these positions filled now that we're facing this very intimidating challenge.