Benjamin can get to work

SENATE REPUBLICANS — helped along, we suspect, by their Alabama colleagues Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby — did the right thing by withdrawing their blockade of Dr. Regina Benjamin's nomination as surgeon general.

All Alabamians can take pride in Dr. Benjamin's selection. She is now in a position to use her knowledge of health care issues among the disadvantaged and uninsured.

Washington is a long way from the Bayou La Batre clinic Dr. Benjamin founded, but the problems are the same: too many Americans with no insurance or too little insurance and a health care system that costs too much and puts too little emphasis on preventive care.

Dr. Benjamin's nomination was caught up in politicking over health care reform as eight Republican senators blocked her confirmation. Sens. Shelby and Sessions were certainly not part of that group. Happily, the opposition went away and she was confirmed Thursday night.

Dr. Benjamin had been unable to speak publicly during the confirmation process, even as she was subjected to unfair and unnecessary criticism about her own weight and her association with Burger King.

Now, all Americans can learn what Dr. Benjamin thinks should be done to contain swine flu, how to improve access to health care and how costs can be controlled through preventive care so that common, easily treated conditions like high blood pressure don't lead to life-threatening complications.

South Alabamians have known about Dr. Benjamin and her work in rural Mobile County for many years. Now they can share her with the nation.