It’s been telling to watch the a-flutter reaction of liberals to President Trump’s April 21 appointment of Sylvia Trent-Adams as acting U.S. Surgeon General after forcing the resignation of Barack Obama’s appointee of three years, Vivek Murthy. It’s as though incoming presidents are expected to live with their predecessor’s key administrative appointments forever. Never mind that Trent-Adams is a liberal’s “intersectional” dream as an African-American woman. And double-never mind that she was serving as deputy surgeon general when Trump appointed her and had spent 24 years in various positions in the Public Health Service Corps.

The main liberal beef with Trent-Adams seems to be that she’s—horrors—a nurse instead of a doctor, a fact that the New York Times trumpeted in its arch headline: “Nurse Replaces Surgeon General After Obama Appointee Resigns.” ABC News tweeted snobbishly: “Dr. Vivek Murthy—an Obama appointee—resigns as Surgeon General, replaced by deputy Sylvia Trent-Adams, a nurse.” That generated still more tweets, such as this one: “So there is no #surgeongeneral but now there is an #RNgeneral so … yeah? American healthcare is being downgraded on all fronts.” The tweeters seemed to think that the surgeon general actually performs surgery, in contrast to functioning as a public-health policymaker, which is what the position actually entails. The New York Times story did point out—in its very last paragraph—that Trent-Adams has a Ph.D. in nursing and health policy, which entitles her to be addressed as “Doctor” just like an M.D. But it would seem that few of the tweeters got to the end of the New York Times story.