I too was disappointed in many appointments!

Many of us were greatly disappointed when Obama snubbed Dr Dean. I sense our President regrets that decision today. I know I do.

I didn't watch him in VT; at DNC he seemed to have a habit of burning bridges (but that was also exactly what the DNC needed at that moment).

Curious how this post comes out as the GOP is savaging her.

Cali

you should know better.

I take that back. I really don't expect anything more from you.

I was responding to your expectations from me - water on a duck's back.

I know precisely what you're up to.

That was not her appointment at Health - and you know Cali and I differ on many things.

waaahhh. not fair.

Cali gushed about Governor Sebelius during the 2008 campaign, calling her endorsement of Obama a "fantastic endorsement," suggesting that endorsement was one of the reasons those were "heady times" for Obama supporters. Cali's words, not mine.

When Obama appointed Sebelius, there was not a peep out of Cali. As is amply demonstrated of late, Cali never has an unspoken thought when it comes to disagreement with Obama. If she thought Sebelius was a bad choice for HHS, she would have said so 5 years ago. She didn't. Instead, she is just joining the pile on now, when Sebelius is being savaged in the MSM. Not cool. And certainly not fair.

and I sure don't want her to resign.

though it's the endorsement I said I thought was fantastic. And I never endorsed her for HHS

I didn't say you always hated him. But you do seem to have absorbed a lot of right wing talking points about him.

you begin to spread anti-Sebelius propaganda.

It's very curious indeed.

problem. She had the ins background not an IT background.

Dean was governor of Vermont for 12 years and had experience with insurance companies in that capacity and he was a practicing physician as well.

This difficult roll out is to be laid at the feet of the portion of the Supreme Court's ruling, 18 months before the fed website launch, that allowed 26 red states to pull this stunt, refusing Medicaid funding and dumping their citizens onto the fed exchange. The fed site was never meant to nor was it budgeted to take this sort of traffic. Howard Dean would have been in the same fix. Dean is not an IT expert, and would have hired contractors to do the work just like Sebelius. And the contractors would have been screwed by the SCOTUS ruling under Dean just like they were under Sebelius.

State exchanges with Dem governors are working just fine. The CA exchange has already signed up 290,000 people. Oregon reducing their uninsured population by 10% in just 2 weeks.

And his experience as a Dr. is sure as shit not irrelevant. Plus, he's an effective as hell manager- see the DNC under his watch.

And there's a lot more to the job of Sec of HHS than IT, you know that. Evidently not.

Dean, as wonderful as he is, does not have website design skills.

And you are also making the incorrect assumption that Dean would have taken the job.

The thing that rankled me about it, was that I had Sebelius probably winning a Senate seat (in Kansas!) in 2010.

Maybe that would not have happened anyway, considering the electoral bloodbath of 2010, but it seems to me that in Kansas anyway, that her exit took all of the air out of the KDP and that was one of the reasons we got clobbered in 2010. We didn't have a strong state-wide candidate. As much as I love Senator Tom Holland who ran for Governor, he entered the race late, and without statewide name recognition, and after a lot of flopping around by the party trying to find a candidate.

A couple other things happened as well. Dennis Moore, our six term incumbent from the 3rd district, got early stage Alzheimer's and dropped out, once again leaving the party scrambling for a candidate to start running very late. Sebelius Lt. Governor from 2006 was a former state Republican chair who apparently lacked the guts to run himself. If Sebelius had made a better pick there, the party would have had a strong candidate with statewide name recognition.

Instead, we ended up like a chimpanzee trying to tackle a rhino, and we got flattened.

That was clearly more important if your party wants a majority...

I am asking ... I don't know the answer...?

Dean is not close with the DLC types (Clinton/Obama/Reid/etal). The establishment Dems would rather People-powered Howard would just go away.

and I can't tell you what you should do to yourself. And sadly I can't tell you where you should go.

I can tell you that what you're insinuating is bullshit and I can tell you that I have nothing but contempt for said form of bullshit.

and republicans are trying desperately to remove their feet from their mouths so they can eat their crow.

I don't think there is a single appointment he has chosen correctly for.

comes from many fronts and I don't think anyone could do any better than Sebelius. Hang in there. It will get better. If so many Republican governors did not opt out of doing there own version of the ACA, there would be fewer problems. These governors opted out in order to cause more strain on the start up of the ACA. California supported the ACA from the get go and set up its own system and it is working much better than the federal version.

but whatever.

-Laelth

love it.

in BHO's administration. We need strong on national defense, tough on crime, drugs, and terra individuals appointed to high-level government positions, not mushy-headed libruls. Everyone knows libruls is a bad name.

Kathleen Sebelius has been one of the most effective HHS Sec for a very long time, we all know the right
does not want her as head of the HHS, as a matter of fact the right would like to see all of Obama's
Cabinet replaced if they have their way.

Let's not help them with their one sided narrative, please.

Sibelius -> Tavenner -> Snyder -> Trenkle -> Chao

http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Agency-Information/CMSLeadership/Office_OIS.html

And the project may be under Monique Outerbridge, Director Consumer Information & Insurance Systems Group

Technology is not an area of importance or competence in the Washington bureaucracy.

Dean wouldn't have made a difference.

not token liberals to throw crumbs to the base.

I get it already!

The roll-out of the federal exchange isn't really one of her primary responsibilities. She has long experience with the insurance industry, which is what ACA implementation is all about. Dean might have been a good choice, too, but he was not the choice, or turned the opportunity down.

The problems with the exchange website is not Ms. Sebelius' fault. She didn't create that website. She is an administrator and has a broad range of responsibilities. Someone else had the responsibility for that website.

You're getting a lot of flack for this post, and perhaps deservedly so. You had no problem with her appointment when it was made, but now that the Republicans are attacking this woman, you are carrying their water here. I don't find that particularly appropriate just now, when the entire ACA is under attack. I'm not surprised, but I don't find it appropriate right now.

That is my opinion. Yours, no doubt, differs.