The NRCC went ahead and created a useful list called the “7 Most Ridiculous Things Kathleen Sebelius Said At Today’s Hearing:” there were more than seven, of course, but these were particularly… well, ‘good’ is not really the right term, eh? Anyway, this one’s my favorite:
2. “The website never crashed.”
“We were anxious to get the website up and running and functional, which we clearly have failed to do to date, although I would suggest the website has never crashed,” Secretary Sebelius testified about HealthCare.gov.
Really? What about the woman who tried every day for 23 days to log onto the website? And what about the fact that although HealthCare.gov did indeed crash just days before the October 1 launch, you decided to proceed with the rollout anyway?
I particularly loved the way that CNN cut away to a live shot of the website being, indeed, in a state of being crashed at the very moment that the Secretary was saying that the site had not crashed. One gets the feeling that we’re not the only people out there who are getting just a little bit tired of all the nonsense that keeps piling up…
Anyway, check out the NRCC site. There’s stuff that people can use – and more importantly, spread around.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Let me forestall the computer scientists: yes, I am sure that there is an interpretation or two in which Sebelius was being technically accurate. Please bear in mind, though: if you ask the average American what this picture represents…
…most of them will tell you: Dude, that’s a crashed website. And in this particular case it’s the public’s opinion that matters.
And the other six things are right here.
If computer scientists can prove the existence of God, why can’t our government create a single website?
Never crashed, maybe – as you say, there are technical weasel words.
.
This is why I usually get asked stuff like “Was the web site in a usable state?” That’s both a more useful and a harder to weasel question.
.
Mew
The cruelest and most just thing that we as a people can do to the Secretary is to take away her Government insurance and force her to purchase her new policy on the exchange like everyone else or pay the penalty. I think this should be done immediately as a way to teach her what being responsible is. Screw up to badly and you have to live with the consequences of your failure, every frickin day for the rest of your life!
Our D.C. overlords have long avoided the consequences of their choices.
.
D.C. cops suck? Capitol police!
.
D.C. gyms suck? Private gym for the politicos!
.
D.C. restaurants suck? Private dining facilities!
.
If I had my way, all congressional and executive branch facilities duplicated by either the armed services or private sector in D.C. would be closed and auctioned off, and congressional salaries would be tied to armed services rating equivalents.
.
Senior Senator from a given State should earn about what an Army Major pulls down… Reps should start out around a second lieutenant.
.
Congresscritters would be permitted to requisition living quarters in military housing at bases around D.C., since they’re going to whine about the massive salary cut.
.
Their pensions will be handled by the V.A., and they will still get treatment for life, but via V.A. doctors (or BIA if their district includes a reservation) and they can do their shopping at a base PX.
.
Seems like a good way to ensure they rub elbows with the working side of government.
.
Mew
.
.
p.s. No offense to Mrs. Lane intended.
None taken. Dr. Lane* works for a living. 🙂
*She’d roll her eyes at the “Dr.” There’s some weird point of pride among some of the folks with PhDs.
In fairness to the person, there is an alternative explanation.
.
The person is fairly old, and I’ve not heard that she is very technically minded.
.
She may be entirely unfamiliar with common usage as applied to technical and computer problems.
.
Technically, I might qualify as a computer scientist. As in, very technically, I might be classified as a scientist, and I have some knowledge of computers.
.
IIRC, a crash originally described some sort of HDD failure. Even that isn’t narrow enough to escape qualifying. A project of this scope likely involves so many HDDs that at least some have already failed. Modern techniques for redundancy and backups mean that failed HDDs can often be seamlessly replaced without loss, assuming best practices are followed.
.
Anyway, no reason to expect that she had competent advice on this aspect of wording. As a long time mid to high level cog in political and bureaucratic systems, she may have even had people for all of her interactions with computer technology, Her lawyers may well have been significantly ignorant.
.
So, she hears crash, and she thinks vehicle accident, or political disaster. She knows the one hasn’t happened, and she wouldn’t being doing due diligence as a minion if she prematurely admitted the other.
.
That said, I haven’t gotten around to watching the thing, or reading a transcript myself. It may well be that the context shows that she has a fluent understanding of technical issues.
Actually the testimony showed that she has absolutely no grasp of the technical issues and didn’t consult with anyone who actually worked on the system.
.
It’s a shame that no one thought to have the website up and running on a laptop connected to a projection screen. Showing her that error message while she was claiming that the site had never crashed would have been beautiful.
Actually, at least three Congressmen mentioned the crashed site, and at least one showed her it on his iPad. I think that there may have even been a projection screen.
Anyone want to start a pool over which University will suddenly need a President so Sebelius can be shuttled off out of the administration. She should be forced to resign over her gross incompetence but naah her pathetic CYA skills are going to be what gets her on Valerie Jarrett’s bad side. Seriously, Obama’s first rule, find something to blame not you and then consistently blame it to the death (preferably George Bush). In the pool, I got the University of Chicago, sorry acat, Sebelius is moving into the neighborhood.
Not some U back in Kansas? Lawrence loves her.