Today, President Obama is nominating former Office of Management and Budget director Sylvia Burwell to take Kathleen Sebelius’ newly-vacant position as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Politico’s story on Burwell highlights her résumé (she comes from a McKinsey–Gates Foundation–Robert Rubin–Larry Summers line of center-left technocracy) and the challenges her new job presents (Obamacare Obamacare Obamacare). And then there’s this:
During her time in the Clinton White House, Burwell helped to oversee the president’s initiative on issues surrounding race. Some internal memos she issued on the subject drew mockery from other staffers, including then-White House staffer and now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who sarcastically dismissed one such missive as “pretty exciting stuff.”
DAAAAAAAAAAAAANG Kagan BURN!!!!!! If Burwell comes down to the Supreme Court for some sort of Affordable Care Act case, things could be very awkward.
There are no further details in the story about when or how Kagan dropped this zing, how Politico learned about it two decades later, or whether Sylvia Burwell likes butter (because Elena Kagan turned her into toast).
