Now that Daschle is out of the picture, everyone is wondering who Obama will put up for Secretary of Health and Human Services. If it were my choice, I'd go straight to Howard Dean.

Dean is, first of all, a Physician and knows the health field from the inside. Has head of the Democratic Party his 50 State Stratey was a masterpiece of organization and one of the reasons Obama carried so many states that were previously in the Republican Column. Dean is intelligent, articulate and a real presence when he appears on television or at rallies.

Now, as I understand it, there's friction between Dean and Rahm Emmanuel that ha to be overcome, but Rahm's personal crap should not be standing in the way of a real position in the Administration for Dean, who, after all his work, has been really, and insultingly, overlooked.

Under The LobsterScope

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When Barack Obama announced plans to nominate Tom Daschle to run the Department of Health and Human Services, I agreed with Ezra Klein that the choice signaled Obama's commitment to get comprehensive health care reform through Congress. I knew that Daschle's wife was a longtime lobbyist, and that Daschle was not nearly as liberal as the right-wingers made him out to be. But we all know that the Senate will be the biggest obstacle to any good health care plan. Daschle knows that body's procedures and the majority of its members extremely well.

The choice isn't looking so good today.

Not paying taxes on the use of someone else's limousine looks bad, but as we saw last week with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, failure to fully meet one's tax obligations no longer seems to be a barrier to serving in the cabinet. (By the way, Daschle knew about this problem last summer but didn't tell Obama's vetting team.)

Many people might honestly not realize that if they use someone else's car, they need to report the value of that service as taxable income. But what is Daschle's excuse for overstating his tax-deductible charitable gifts and not reporting more than $83,000 in consulting income? If Bill Richardson was asked to step aside because of an investigation that hasn't even proven wrongdoing, then Daschle should not get a pass for not paying his taxes.

As is so often the case in politics, though, what's legal can be even more disturbing. From Politico:

Daschle made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show, including $220,000 he received for giving speeches, many of them to outfits that stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.

For instance, the Health Industry Distributors Association plunked down $14,000 to land the former Senate Democratic leader in March 2008. The association, which represents medical products distributors, boasts on its website that Daschle met with it after he was nominated to discuss "the impact an Obama administration will have on the industry."

This week, the group began openly lobbying him, sending him a letter urging him to rescind a rule requiring competitive bidding of Medicare contracts.

Another organization, America's Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama's plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.

There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before health care groups.

The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.

These speaking engagements are legal, but it is an unacceptable conflict of interest for Daschle to have taken that much money from groups with a major financial stake in health care reform.

At Daily Kos nyceve examines one of those paid speeches and tells you why you should care: As UnitedHealth subsidiary Ingenix defrauded Americans, Daschle was its 2008 keynote speaker.

A lot of liberal bloggers are now calling for Obama to withdraw Daschle's nomination and appoint Howard Dean to run HHS instead. As much as I like Dean, I do not think he's the person to shepherd health care reform through Congress. But I agree that Obama needs to find a replacement for Daschle--the sooner, the better.

If Obama stands by Daschle, I suspect the Senate insiders' club would confirm him, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Speaking of stalled confirmations, Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming appears to be the Republican who is holding up Hilda Solis's nomination for Secretary of Labor. This is purely ideological, based on Solis' support for the Employee Free Choice Act. Solis has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Will Obama stand behind his choice for this cabinet position? The president expressed support for organized labor on Friday while signing executive orders to boost labor unions.

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, MediaWire blogger

It's official, former Sen. Tom Daschle will be Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle will also serve as Health Czar, which means he will be in charge of developing Obama's healthcare program in addition to running HHS.

Ezra Klein writes in the Prospect: "This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress."

Ezra argues that Obama has learned the lessons of Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to reform healthcare in 1994. Ezra's view, the Clinton plan failed because its architects were so focused on crafting the perfect policy that they neglected to figure out how they were going to sell their plan politically.

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With just three primaries left, it is abundantly clear at this point that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president, yet Hillary has shown no signs that she plans to leave the race any time soon. On the assumptions that she is aware that the race is effectively over, and that she does, in fact, have some reason for remaining in the race other than spite and/or denial, the question becomes, what is she looking to gain? In the extended entry, I discuss what the competing theories are, and how realistic they seem to be.

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Wow!  This is Congress at it's finest.  And some great tv viewing to boot.

The Labor, Health and Human Services bill is under consideration in  in the House this week.
And the Democrats are in their prime, and on their favorite turf.

Having restored funding to so many health and educational programs ravaged by the self-serving Right, many moderate Republicans are joining with the Democrats to push their hard core colleagues off the cliff into a heap every with 10 minutes vote knocking their amendments into the trash can.

I think I actually shed a tear..of joy...

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