Ratings Rule in Obama's "Virtual" Cabinet

Gupta tried to discredit Moore's favorable reports on national health programs in Canada, France, and Cuba by referencing a leading health industry figure who had ridiculed the programs.  Moore responded that the expert was aligned with big pharma and health insurance companies, a point Gupta vigorously denied.  Gupta was wrong.  The expert was heavily affiliated with corporate health industry interests.  Gupta either didn't know this or he deliberately lied.

Frank Rich described what we may see more of with Surgeon General Gupta, MD.  The television doctor was an embedded medical reporter during the Iraq invasion.  He operated on a two year old Iraqi boy with a serious head injury.  CNN ran promotions of the surgery "all day long."  In the 2003 column, Rich noted:  "Lest anyone not grasp the most important moral of this incident, Dr. Gupta himself declared that 'it was a heroic attempt to try to save the child's life'' after the child had died.'"

Gupta pitched an updated version of MASH as a television series a year later based on his Iraq experience.

We've reached an important milestone in the Orwellian world of U.S. politics.  The pretence of reality has been dropped.  Rather than simply keeping the people from being upset, the new virtual cabinet approach will sooth us with virtual reality featuring familiar faces and a comforting storyline.

Hopefully, citizens will have better luck with public health than Dr. Gupta had with his Iraqi patient.

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