Is President Bystander officially a laughingstock yet?

[Elias Graves]

Given President Obama's lengthy history of "Shucks, I found out about that the same way you did" excuses, one would think the man would focus when the signature act of his presidency is on the line.
I know if I were in his shoes, I'd be living at HHS supervising the cleanup. Well, beyond that, knowing this was my signature project, I would have had a close hand in guiding its implementation but that ship sailed long ago.
Apparently, the White House is still ignorant of the goings on with Sebelius and company.


"“The website that is of considerable focus, understandably, is run by HHS. They have a team in place that’s working on it. They have brought in individuals as part of this tech surge to help them deal with the problems on the website. They are the people best situated to answer the questions you have.


I would refer you to them about what questions they can answer."


-Jay Carney in today's White House briefing.


So, if I interpret this correctly, the White House doesn't know why it doesn't work, who comprises this "tech surge" or what the plan is to fix it. He repeatedly claimed ignorance on who what why and where
Secondly, it tells me that he is entrusting the repair of his signature achievement to the supervision of the very crew that couldn't get it right the first time?


I'm seriously incredulous at the depths of amateurism that's on display here. I know Eagle Scouts who can organize a better program than this. And he'd be ashamed at allowing a failure like this to occur on his watch.
What is it going to take for people to understand that Obama has never managed an organization in his life? He has no idea how to actually run a government. It does not automatically do as you will based on your never ending campaign rhetoric. You have to actually tell people what to do and hold them accountable to do it. Seriously, a project this big and this high level, the leadership of any organization I've ever worked for would have had intimate knowledge of who's doing what. You can argue that a president can't know everything that goes on under him. That's true and that's why he picks which things he focuses on and entrusts the rest to others (with regular updates)
One would think that the implementation of this program would have received a great deal of his attention. After all, it is the single largest social law passed since Medicare. Biden wasn't kidding when he said "This is a big fukking deal." It is a big fukking deal. Where was the president? We learned from Sebelius today that the president was unaware of the problems with the site including a complete crash on its first full scale test...which occurred only says before launch.
I don't have a facepalm big enough for that. They didn't do a full scale test until days before launch. They didn't do a full scale test until days before launch.
Wow.
And nobody told the president that it crashed. They said they were on schedule.
Wow.
Were I in Obama's shoes, I'd be furious that my staff kept vital information from me and I would expect them to resign in shame for having deceived me.
But we see none of that. "We have full confidence blah blah blah."


So, he turned over implementation of his signature plan lock stock and barrel to Sebelius, apparently without any direct supervision. If he had supervised, he would have known.
She lied to him about its readiness.
He then entrusted the fix to the one who A. Screwed it up in the first place and B. Lied to him about it.
Wow. I'm utterly speechless. We have the not ready for prime time players running the show here. How anyone can continue to defend this guy who has no concept of reality is baffling.

[Lucille]

Taking responsibility for your own fuck-ups is racist.

O Duce chose Selebius to run his big fascist medical system because she has a vagina. Professional qualifications, experience, and competency don't even occur to progs when they have a job to fill.


In a lesser way* it reminds me of the excuses made for Josef Stalin’s misrule (http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2013/10/21/schadenfreude-and-the-dear-leader/). The failures and famines? All the fault of wreckers and saboteurs. The brutality? Underlings exceeding their authority.

But of course Obama really didn’t know. His aloofness (is that a word?) from his own policies is infamous. He delegated to Pelosi and Reid, who delegated to bureaucrats, who spent $400 million (or was it $640, but who’s counting the petty cash?) supervising and tinkering with tech they didn’t understand. And no doubt toward the end every desperate soul working on the now-infamous federal exchange was trying to hide from superiors just how huge a mess the whole thing was going to be.

So now all Our Dear Leader (who doesn’t have a leaderly bone in his body or a leaderly wrinkle in his brain) can do is stand in the White House rose garden and POUT. But by golly, as he himself proclaims (though not exactly in those words), “Nobody, but nobody, has more to pout about than ME. Because I’m so very special.

And because it’s your name going down in infamy, Boss Man.

[Elias Graves]

This is what we get for hiring a professional rabble rouser to run the country.
These activists only know how to throw lit matches in barns. When it comes time to put the new barn up, they're nowhere to be found, though.

[Lucille]

Yup. All progs know is how to destroy.

President Did Not Know, Claims Sebelius, as Administration Goes Full Sgt. Schultz on Obamacare
http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/23/president-did-not-know-claims-sebelius-a


It may be his signature policy achievement. It may even be nicknamed after him, But the woes besetting the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, were supposedly a mystery to him until days after the exhanges launched at the beginning of October—or so claims Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. In the days, weeks, and months leading to the debut of this massive transformation of the U.S. health care system, he knew nothing about looming problems.

Well, Barack Obama is a hands-off guy, don't you know? Apparently, he's relaxed a tad since developing a reputation as a micromanager.

Speaking to CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Sebelius engaged in the following somewhat difficult-to-believe conversation:
[...]
Hmmm....So President Obama knew nothing about the exchanges crashing under the stress of a few hundred testers days before the formal launch?

The president knew nothing about insurance companies warning against launching the Website nationally a month before the disastrous debut?

Barry knew nothing about federal and state officials urging that the launch be delayed even as costs tripled?

What are the chances that president knows his signature achievement is projected to hike health premiums in 45 states while simultaneously slashing access to physicians and hospitals?

Sgt. Schultz was omniscient compared to this country's chief political seat-warmer. Or, more likely, his political protectors calculate that letting the boss come off as an uninvolved slacker is less damaging than permitting him to take responsibility for a policy mess.

[Acala]

The funny thing is that this screw-up, as massive and inexcusable as it is, is nothing compared to what is in store. Of course there is no shortage of government programs that have not accomplished their purported goal, have operated dramatically over budget estimates, and have failed in numerous other ways. But generally they have been papered over with vast sums of money, lots of denial, and a legislative nip here and tuck there. But THIS monstrosity is going to be so very, very bad that it will collapse of its own weight and nothing can stop it. And I will laugh.

[Elias Graves]

We can only hope...

Because we have no leaders willing to do anything about it.