Kathleen Sebelius has a lot of things going for her as a possible Obama running mate, but being a woman isn't among them.  Disaffected Clinton supporters will be further turned off if Obama picks Sebelius, a move that would be, apparently, tantamount to a slap in the face of Clinton and those who supported her.

I still have a hard time buying that it's more of a slap in the face to pick Sebelius over Clinton than to pick Kaine or any other man over Clinton.  I imagine the logic goes like this:  the Sebelius pick would demonstrate that Obama came awfully close to picking Clinton, but then pulled away and chose another woman instead.  It's like holding out your hand, but then when the other person gets close enough to shake it, you pull it back and fix your hair--psych!  Mocking the person by approximating a handshake is worse, I suppose, than never extending your hand at all.

But this line of reasoning is premised on the assumption that a Sebelius pick is sufficiently close to a Clinton pick to be mocking, certainly closer than picking a man would be.  And I don't think that's quite right.  Sebelius is more similar to Clinton than Bayh or Biden or Kaine is in precisely one dimension:  her womanhood.  And, to Clinton fans, is womanhood really Clinton's, or Sebelius's, defining characteristic, the very basis for her appeal?  Because that's the message outrage at Sebelius conveys.

A belief that Clinton is entitled to be on the ticket is certainly a defensible position.  But if she does, she deserves it over all the men on the short list as well as over the women.  Perhaps Clinton deserves it more than Biden or Kaine--but Sebelius doesn't deserve it even less than they simply because she is a woman.