Day 42: Obama Taps Sebelius For HHS

On his forty-second day in office, President Obama tapped Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to become Secretary of Health and Human Services and help lead his charge to reform health care. His first choice, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, withdrew from consideration over tax issues.

“I don’t think anybody has a silver bullet when it comes to health care,” the president said. “There are some difficult tradeoffs to be made, there are difficult choices to be made.”

Still, he added, “the path that we are on is unsustainable.”

Also today, another Obama nominee ran into tax problems; legislation to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” was unveiled by a member of the House; and the president declined to crack wise after Washington DC got hit with a major snowstorm.

Some background on that last item: On January 28th, after school was cancelled for the day for his daughters, the president said, “When it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don’t seem to be able to handle things.”

Facing this latest, bigger storm, however, the president let his press secretary do the talking.

“This might be what the president considers a serious snowstorm,” Robert Gibbs said with a smile after asking reporters about their commute.