I have already noted that Barack Obama's choice to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, has been voted out of committee with enough Republican support to ensure that any attempt by the far right to filibuster her nomination wouldn't succeed. Yet that doesn't seem be be stopping the far right from trying.

Over at The Corner, James Capretta lays out a kind of rambling argument against Senate conformation for Sebelius. I'm not going to quote the post at length, but the gist of it seems to be that Sebelius should not be on the cabinet because she is pro-choice, and her selection will harm President Obama's push to reform healthcare in the country by bringing to the fore the issue of abortion.

I may be missing something, but conservatives seem oblivious to the fact that six months ago America overwhelmingly elected a pro-choice President running on a pro-choice platform against an anti-choice candidate running on an anti-choice platform. And though they may not like to hear it, less than one in five voters, and perhaps as few as 10 percent, hew to the far right's view of making illegal all abortion in the country. So having an HHS Secretary who believes, as do the vast majority of Americans, that women should have the right to make reproductive choices is far from "radical," which is how Capretta deems Sebelius' stances. (I might add that the number of abortions in Kansas has actually decreased under Sebelius' watch, but then again the anti-abortion movement hasn't really been focused on decreasing the number of abortions.)

But it's the next logical leap in Capretta's argument that really has me scratching my head -- that Sebelius' pro-choice views will hurt a move towards universal healthcare coverage. "The mere presence of Sebelius at the top of HHS will be enough to push millions of pro-life Americans into adamant opposition to the whole health-care reform enterprise," Capretta writes. Leaving aside the clear polling data that not only do most Americans favor a move towards universal coverage but would even be willing to pay more in taxes to see that goal achieved, I still don't see how having the anti-choice movement in opposition to an Obama administration plan to ensure healthcare coverage for all Americans would spell doom for the effort.

Democrats already have the power to enact healthcare reform without Republican support. But even if they choose not to invoke this power and instead hope to garner some backing from within the GOP, it's not likely to come from the far right fringe of the party. The Tom Coburns and Jon Kyls of the Senate are extremely unlikely to back an Obama administration healthcare reform package, Sebelius or not, and don't need the lobbying of anti-abortion groups to strengthen their resolve. No, if the Democratic whip team is looking for Republican votes on healthcare reform, they're going to turn to the type of moderate conservatives who self-identify as at least somewhat pro-choice -- Senators not as beholden to the hardcore anti-abortion lobby as their more conservative brethren. How a fatwa against any politicians even somewhat pro-choice in their outlook would sway these somewhat pro-choice Senators is not clear to me.

Conservatives and Republicans are grasping at straws here, and not even well. Sebelius should be confirmed in due time, and will be a strong addition to the President's cabinet when she is.