Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

This fight is for everything.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

T R E 4 5 O N

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

We still have time to mess this up!

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / I love the smell of resignation in the evening

I love the smell of resignation in the evening

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Smells like victory:

Obamacare has won. And that’s why Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius can resign.

Calls for Sebelius’s resignation were almost constant after Obamacare’s catastrophic launch. The problem wasn’t just that Sebelius had presided over the construction of a fantastically expensive web site that flatly didn’t work. It was that she didn’t know healthcare.gov was going to instantly, systemically fail. And so the White House didn’t know that healthcare.gov was going to instantly, systemically fail. The demands that Sebelius to step down — or be fired — were as deafening inside the building as outside of it.

But President Obama refused. As National Journal’s Major Garrett reported, Obama believes that “scaring people with a ceremonial firing deepens fear, turns allies against one another, makes them risk-averse, and saps productivity.” Moreover, there was too much to be done to fire one of the few people who knew how to finish the job. Sebelius would stay. The White House wouldn’t panic in ways that made it harder to save the law.

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  2. 2.

    Gin & Tonic

    Top of Google News this moment: Sebelius Resigns After Troubles Over Health Site. The New York Times.

    Your liberal media at work.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m guessing that, like most cabinet members who have served 4 years, Sebelius was ready to step down after the 2012 election, but decided to see things through until the exchanges came online. Now that that’s happened, frankly, all of the big decisions are over and it’s just a bunch of tweaking from this point on.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    The White House wouldn’t panic in ways that made it harder to save the law.

    It may be a good day to post that meme again — you know the one.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    Here’s what I said in an earlier thread, and I can’t improve on it:

    And Sebelius can leave with her head held high. She can leave with the law she helped build looking, shockingly, like a success.

    Shockingly??? Ezra is such an asshole.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    Lamb linked to that below and although it got off to a rocky start, maybe she’ll be remembered for the 7.5 million that signed up.. History is strange like that.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: Ezra invested a fair amount of time and energy into becoming “the liberal healthcare wonk who was convinced that the rollout disaster could sink the whole law”. Can’t let an investment like that go to waste, now can we?

  14. 14.

    metricpenny

    She has to go. And the timing is good — after the close of the first open enrollment period.

    There is no way that system shouldn’t have been tested prior to roll-out. She could have enlisted everyone in the HHS department, and others, to test the system one Saturday prior to launch. And, when it was revealed it wasn’t ready, the roll-out could have been delayed.

    All Democrats were tainted by the botched launch. Okay. I can’t speak for all Democrats, but this one feels the taint.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: ACASignups.net, your one-stop shop for up to the minute numbers. Current estimate is 7.59 million (through today), and the extended enrollment period has another 5 days to run.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @dmsilev:

    Thanks! I wonder why I didn’t get those “breaking” news alerts from the media on my phone.

    Oh, wait…no, I don’t.

  21. 21.

    jheartney

    Heard a report on this from Nice, Polite Republicans (NPR) that was all but sneering about what a disaster the site was and how a team other than Sebelius’ was brought in to save her bacon. There was a brief sniffy mention of how the site managed to go on to register a mere 7 odd million, but mostly it was chortling at Sebelius getting humiliated.

    I will never again give money to those assholes.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Joseph Nobles:

    or to be Hillary’s veep.

    Gotta say, that would be a-awesome-mazing, an all-female D ticket in 2016. I don’t think it’s going to happen, in fact if Hillary runs (which I’m not at all convinced of) and gets the nomination, I suspect she’d go with a fairly small-c conservative choice for VP. I think she’s more likely to go with, say, Julián or Joaquin Castro than Sebelius or another woman.

  24. 24.

    Rommie

    I think this is going to turn out great, when the Senate has a hissy fit about approving her replacement. Please, tell us more about the disaster you have to save us from!

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: Please god let Evan Bayh not be on the short list this time.

    Since my gramma always said you should always say something nice about everyone, I am pleasantly surprised at how low-profile Evan has been since leaving the Senate. Also too, Joe Lieberman.

  26. 26.

    Keith G

    @dmsilev:

    Ezra invested a fair amount of time and energy into becoming “the liberal healthcare wonk who was convinced that the rollout disaster could sink the whole law”. Can’t let an investment like that go to waste, now can we?

    Not exactly a fair characterization. Klein was one of…oh..let’s say…several thousands who were saying, “Man this roll out sucks. They need to fix it.”

    In early November he typed:

    Of course, behind all this sits a fix that might actually solve a lot of the problems without creating any new ones: Fixing HealthCare.Gov. A working Web site would mean people getting cancellations could see if they could get a better deal in the marketplace — and many of them can. A working Web site would create a flood of winners who could get their stories into the media and ratchet down the pressure on congressional Democrats. And a working Web site would restore some of the congressional Democrats’ faith in the Obama administration and give them reason to resist passing any laws that could undermine the now-functional law.

    My Emphasis.

    Hardly a Cassandra.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @dmsilev:

    Ezra invested a fair amount of time and energy into becoming “the liberal healthcare wonk who was convinced that the rollout disaster could sink the whole law”. Can’t let an investment like that go to waste, now can we?

    Personally I’d keep my head down and hope everyone forgot how wrong I’d been, but tastes differ.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    5 full years is a long time for any cabinet officer. Anyone except Holder been in longer? I wonder if Holder will go the full 8 years.

  31. 31.

    RepubAnon

    If the Democrats learned that it’s a bad idea to quickly force, say Shirley Sharrod to resign – that’s a good thing.

    On a side note, whenever the Kristians (fake Christians) try and start another moral panic, perhaps we should mention the great Dungeons & Dragons scare campaign:

    Pulling described D&D as “a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings”.

    Pulling and BADD launched an intensive media campaign through conservative Christian outlets as well as mainstream media, including an appearance on current affairs show 60 Minutes opposite D&D creator Gary Gygax.

    …snip…

    “The view of roleplaying games has changed over time,” says Smith, “mostly because the predicted ‘streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country’ simply never materialised.”
    Source: BBC: The great 1980s Dungeons & Dragons panic

    Does this template campaign sound familiar?

  33. 33.

    ArchTeryx

    @Ken: Forget it, Jake, it’s Punditown. Your career can only be enhanced by being wrong about everything, as long as the wrongness is all in the conservative direction.

  34. 34.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Baud:

    The White House wouldn’t panic in ways that made it harder to save the law.

    Unlike, say, Ezra “OMG the web site crashed we’re doomed! Dooooooooooooooooomed!!!” Klein.

  38. 38.

    Hill Dweller

    @Bobby Thomson: I remember Ezra advising Republicans to end the shutdown, because they were missing the opportunity to attack Dems for the website. Good times.

  43. 43.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Keith G: Well, he’s obviously not a Cassandra, because his predictions of doom didn’t pan out. The metaphor you are looking for is Sully Chicken Little, and he most definitely was one, your cherry-picked quote notwithstanding.

  44. 44.

    Jay C

    @Rommie:

    Speaking of which, who do we think Pres. Obama will/should nominate to replace Ms Sebelius? For me, I’d like Barry to put up some radical, in-your-face, ultra-reformist-advocate: just to get maximum mileage out of Republican sputttering and head-exploding, but who knows…..

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Davis X. Machina:

    The FP’ers there have been doing some good work lately. They were never as bad as some of the diarists and commenters. Biggest problem the FP’ers have is that they can’t or won’t stand up to some of the more idiots on that site. Or that was their biggest problem. It’s been years since I was a regular over there, so I can’t really speak to how things are now.

  48. 48.

    Keith G

    @Hill Dweller: Jesus, people. He wasn’t advising the GOP. He was actually being derivative and saying what most of the pundit class was noticing….the shutdown was a loser and about the only topic that was spinning in the GOP’s favor at that time was concerns about ACA.

    Is it Klein’s job to blow smoke up the ass of every progressive in the country for every topic? Are we all that shallow and insecure?

  49. 49.

    gbear

    @JPL:

    maybe she’ll be remembered for the 7.5 million that signed up..

    Maybe she’ll be remembered for getting ‘only’ 7.5 million people signed up once 30 million people are using Obamacare..

  51. 51.

    Keith G

    @Bobby Thomson: They were not predictions of doom. That is just strange.

    I do not need or want writers to hold my hand and tell me everything Obama/Hillary/whomever does is the best thing ever. Nor do I want them to be petulant or consistently pessimistic.

    Klein is one of those writers that although I do not agree with every notion he puts forth, the arc of his work shows thoughtfulness and a desire to deal intelligently with complicated issues.

  52. 52.

    Hill Dweller

    @Keith G:

    Is it Klein’s job to blow smoke up the ass of every progressive in the country for every topic? Are we all that shallow and insecure?

    There is a veritable chasm between what Klein was doing during the botched roll out and “blowing smoke up the ass of every progressive in the country”.

    No one, not even the President’s most ardent fans, pretended the roll out was anything other than awful. But most people seemed to grasp it wasn’t the demise of the law because people procrastinate when signing up and it would eventually be fixed.

    Conversely, Klein completely melted down, posting nearly daily hysterical rants, in addition to his doom and gloom on MSNBC.

  55. 55.

    JoyfulA

    @Pen: Nah, NPR’s been bad since at least the first GWB term. That’s when I quit listening and quit giving.

  56. 56.

    Anya

    Chuck Todd is such a douche. Lawrence was interviewing him and he kept going on and on about how Sibelius was pushed out. Why would she stay? The rollout turned out to be a huge success despite the earlier hiccups. It’s a tiring and thankless job. She doesn’t need to deal with any of the morons in Congress anymore.

    I have the highest respect for Sibelius. I will never, ever forgive Jon Steward for the way he disrespected her. He treats every wingnut he interviews with the utmost respect, yet, he beat up on an honest and hardworking public servant.

  58. 58.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Sorry, must go completely off topic. My book has just passed Bill O’Reilly’s latest conservative, uh, offering, and at this moment is the #1 bestselling children’s ebook on Amazon.

    A) Suck it, O’Reilly. MY book doesn’t get remaindered. People actually like reading it.

    B) I am officially Bigger Than Jesus.

    The appropriate screenshot.

  63. 63.

    jheartney

    @Pen: They were like that back during the Clinton years. Mara Liasson was practically doing the full Coulter. Mostly I ignore them, but I happened to be listening to Marketplace and this came on after.

  64. 64.

    mai naem

    I’ve always liked Sebelius. It’s a pity the website roll out sucked so bad. If the roll out had gone well, she would have people encouraging her to run for prez in 2016. I still think if and its a big if, people’s attitude towards O-care changes drastically in the next 18 mos, I think she would make a good veep candidate and you would have the GOP having to spend money in Kansas to keep it in the GOP column.

  68. 68.

    AxelFoley

    @metricpenny:

    She has to go. And the timing is good — after the close of the first open enrollment period.

    There is no way that system shouldn’t have been tested prior to roll-out. She could have enlisted everyone in the HHS department, and others, to test the system one Saturday prior to launch. And, when it was revealed it wasn’t ready, the roll-out could have been delayed.

    All Democrats were tainted by the botched launch. Okay. I can’t speak for all Democrats, but this one feels the taint.

    All Dems tainted? Man, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit. You sound like that little bitch Ezra Klein.

  70. 70.

    Scott Alloway

    @dmsilev: Completed mine today. A 64 year old smoker with pre=existings for less than $200 a month Silver BC/BS. Hoo-rah. Yeah, I lead a bad life.

  71. 71.

    Petorado

    @AxelFoley: Had every Republican governor and state legislature not dutifully stabbed their own constituents in the back for the sake of party pride, the HHS website would have functioned just fine. Who could have conceived such egregious dereliction of duty on a such massive scale would occur in a democracy where elected officials publicly avow to uphold the laws of the land … so help them god.

  72. 72.

    ruemara

    @Keith G: “The phone hold doesn’t even have music.” This was one of Ezra’s trenchant complaints and an example of the failure of the ACA. Sorry, NOPE.

  73. 73.

    AxelFoley

    @Petorado:

    @AxelFoley: Had every Republican governor and state legislature not dutifully stabbed their own constituents in the back for the sake of party pride, the HHS website would have functioned just fine. Who could have conceived such egregious dereliction of duty on a such massive scale would occur in a democracy where elected officials publicly avow to uphold the laws of the land … so help them god.

    Exactly. And instead of pointing that out, Klein moaned daily about what a disaster the rollout, and thus Obamacare, was.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @AxelFoley: For all I know, Howard Dean would make a fine SecHHS, but I will never for the life of me understand how he became the Dragon Slaying Wizard and answer to every question for a certain subset of internet liberals.

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    Can we start speculating that she resigned to start preparing for a 2016 Presidential run?

    No. Michelle forced her out when she discovered she was having an affair with the President. Trying to come up with a theory too crazy for wingnuts to believe.

  77. 77.

    Scamp Dog

    @Frankensteinbeck: Cool! I went ahead and bought a copy. Have to do my part to make sure you stay ahead of Mr. Tide Expert. Oh, and the description and excerpt I read sounded fun, too. :)

  79. 79.

    Groucho48

    Off topic, but, more resignation for the right. A few days ago, UPS, in NYC, fired 20 drivers and said they were going to fire 220 more, because they participated in what UPS called an illegal strike. The work stoppage, which lasted 90 minutes, was to show support for another driver who had come back to work after an injury. He says that he asked UPS if he could come in early each day so he could get his truck loaded in time, as the injury was slowing him down. He says management agreed. A couple or three weeks later, he signed a union petition. Shortly thereafter, UPS summarily fired him because they claim he had never gotten permission to come in early and by doing so he was stealing from the company. (The charge of theft was needed because it takes a serious charge such as that to fire anyone without going through the grievance process.)

    Well, anyway, it was all over right wing sites and most of them were praising UPS for what it did. They had no problem whatsoever with the firings or the dubious justification UPS gave for firing the first guy. I mean, it’s union thugs, after all, firing is the least they deserve for challenging the corporate masters.

    Well, after lots of organizing and pressure from the union and from NYC officials, UPS has blinked. They are taking all the drivers back. They are docking them 2 weeks pay and they are docking the original guy’s time since he was fired until he starts work again.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/250-workers-ups-fired-last-033600667.html

  80. 80.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Gin & Tonic: I couldn’t understand why Rachel Maddow (who I love) made it seem that Sebellius’ resignation was a bad thing and that somehow it reflected badly on the White House. Secretary Sebellius is probably exhausted from working so hard on the successful rollout of the ACA, which resulted in over 7.3 million enrollees. She deserves to take a long vacation (out of the country and away from the media) and to retire in peace. She has done an excellent job.

  82. 82.

    Patricia Kayden

    @ruemara: No hold music. Really?! That actually made me laugh out loud. I see Klein from time to time on MSNBC but don’t read his articles. I guess I’m not missing anything.

  83. 83.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Groucho48: “Well, anyway, it was all over right wing sites and most of them were praising UPS for what it did. They had no problem whatsoever with the firings or the dubious justification UPS gave for firing the first guy. I mean, it’s union thugs, after all, firing is the least they deserve for challenging the corporate masters.”

    Yet they’re crying the blues about Eich and how he was forced out by those mean gay activists.

  84. 84.

    low-tech cyclist

    “scaring people with a ceremonial firing deepens fear, turns allies against one another, makes them risk-averse, and saps productivity.”
    -Obama

    Yeah, wish he’d taken that line on Shirley Sherrod.

  85. 85.

    Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim

    June 2 is the filing deadline for the Kansas primary election. Sebelius was a relatively popular governor, I believe. Certainly more popular than Brownback has made himself. Could she ebter the race?

    And the New Orleans Jazz Fest, which Sebelius has apparently attended for 30 years running, is next week. Not that I think she’ll be taking the stage with Aaron Neville.

  86. 86.

    LAC

    @dmsilev: and he certainly had a fair number of front pagers and lemmings here clamoring for room in his colon. Let’s not pretend it was all right wing nut bags.

  88. 88.

    Stuck in Brownbackistan

    @Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:

    The Democrat already running against Brownback (Paul Davis) is ahead in the polls. She’d just confuse things. But some visible support from her could definitely help Davis’ cause.

    It would be extremely amusing to see her run for Senate against Pat Roberts, who doesn’t even maintain the facade of living in in Kansas anymore and is already running TV spots against his (even further right) primary challenger. She might even bring a little bit of the downticket momentum needed to bring some sanity back to our Legislature.

  89. 89.

    metricpenny

    @AxelFoley:

    In case your reading comprehension is lacking, I did qualify my comment.

    I don’t know what Ezra sounds like since I don’t read him.

    However, little bitches can be right sometimes.

  91. 91.

    Mandarama

    @Frankensteinbeck: I got a couple of your ideal readers in my household–12- and 9-yr-old boys who love superheroes and think there ought to be more girl protagonists in their books. Ordering!

    You’re in good company excepting Bill O. My kids both read Palacio’s Wonder last year and loved it so much that they still bring it up all the time.

    I don’t really feel like I’ve been spammed, either…I mostly lurk, but I’ve seen Frankensteinbeck around here for a long time, and I like to hear about BJers’ successes. And worries. And pets, and kids, and food. Lives in general.

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