So This is Donald Berwick

Instead of going the recess appointment route -- slinking into office when Congress is out of session -- perhaps Donald Berwick should have asked Queen Elizabeth for a job when she was in New York yesterday.

After all, Berwick gets misty-eyed when he contemplates the marvels of the British National Health care System.

In 2008 at the London Science Museum in Berwick said: "I fell in love with the NHS . . . . To an American observer, the NHS is such a seductress."

In 2005, Berwick said "I think the NHS is one of the great human health care endeavors on earth. It can be an example for the whole world, an example I must say the United States needs now more than most countries do.

Yeah, the NHS is such a seductress if you want to get the wrong limb amputated, or if you don't mind waiting months to see a doctor after finding a lump in your breast.

I can see know why the Obama administration sought to avoid Congressional hearings on Berwick. So many questions to ask him . . . where to begin.

And notwithstanding the administration's latest spin, Republicans never blocked his nomination. To the contrary, as Jake Tapper notes, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) requested a confirmation hearing for Berwick to take place two weeks ago. Republicans are eager for this hearing; it is Democrats who don't want to Berwick on the evening news so close to midterm elections.

That's why they chose to slip him in as a recess appointment. So much for transparency.