“If confirmed, Dr. Jackson, a career Naval officer who has no real experience running a large bureaucracy, would inherit a set of challenges that have bedeviled Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The department, the federal government’s second largest, has been burdened for years by aging infrastructure, an inefficient health care system and an unwieldy 360,000-person work force.” David J. Shulkin is out at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And the White House doctor is in.

+ Shulkin is not going quietly: “They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed. As I prepare to leave government, I am struck by a recurring thought: It should not be this hard to serve your country.”