Dems turn on DWS

[Beet]

I respect their words when they heap praise on her and say she should stay in through 2017 in an official capacity, over some anonymous sources in a gossipy Politico article, yes.

Again, do you really think they would do anything other than heap praise on her?

Do you not remember Obama having "full confidence" in Sebelius only a week before she "voluntarily" resigned?

"Voluntarily"... yes, she "voluntarily" resigned, as HHS Secretary, which must have been a brutal firing, because HHS Secretaries always serve out the full eight years. Because one president having more than one HHS Secretary is so unusual. Because leaving the post after the end of the sign-up deadline for Obamacare was such an unnatural ending point. Because Obama was chomping at the bit to remind people of his HHS Secretary's failures at a time when his signature health care law was finishing strong, with a surge of enrollments. So he stood by her fiercely in October and November, when the world seemed to be crashing down on Obamacare, but abruptly sacked her in April after the picture had brightened significantly. That's why the administration's claim that she approached Obama and offered to resign on her own must be a lie, right?

Sebelius was a liability. Her face was permanently tied to the failure of Obamacare’s exchanges to be up in time. This article from the New York Times explains the situation better. Of course Obama didn’t tell her to pack her bags and go, but she was certainly forced out in a graceful and quiet manner. Public purges don’t just happen.

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If she left in the middle of the Obamacare rollout, it would have been a PR disaster and would erode confidence in the administration. That’s why the cabinet shakeup occurred months later. Not only was Sebelius out, but Burwell went to HHS, Shaun Donovan to OMB, and Julian Castro to HUD. The Burwell and Castro nominations would be hard to execute in the midst of the all the outrage against the ACA.

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Actually, clear-cut purges do happen. Eric Shinseki was clearly publically purged. There were stories of him lobbying the Senate for support. He resigned at the moment that would have made sense if the reason for the resignation was the V.A. scandal: at the height of it.

Firings of subordinates for incompetence usually happen precisely for PR reasons. The firings usually occur at the point where confidence has been lost in the person to the extent that firing them would have been less of a PR disaster than keeping them on. Because what's worse than admitting that your subordinate failed? Keeping on a subordinate who is already demonstrated to be incompetent. By keeping Sebelius on until at least April, Obama was showing genuine confidence in her to the extent that he must have genuinely believed that she was not going to continue to screw up on the same level. It does lend credence to his words when he said he did not blame her for the website rollout because she does not write code or micromanage the I.T. side.

And is it so hard to believe that Sebelius genuinely wanted out? Her job as HHS during the healthcare rollout must have been grueling; she'd shepherded the law through a solid four years of some of the most intense political opposition we've seen to any federal initiative in decades. The end of the deadline for individual sign ups was a logical ending point. She is a Democrat too and cares about the success of the law, so if she saw herself in that position as a liability she may not have wanted to be there any more. She may not have wanted to be a liability in any way to her boss, either.

But my main point isn't that she wasn't ousted, it's merely that her situation and Wasserman Schultz's are different. The dissatisfaction with her role as HHS Secretary was well known and derives from undeniable, public failures outside of the administration's control. It wasn't the administration judging her agency, it was the public judging her agency and by extension, that coming down on the administration.

With the Wasserman Schultz situation, it isn't at all obvious that she's done anything wrong outside of "inside baseball" stuff. The article is making the assertion that the White House is judging her, and the White House is denying it. That is the story. There's no independent story here outside of what the White House thinks. That's why the White House's heaping of praise on her is more significant, and should be taken more seriously.

[Beet]

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I won’t disagree about the double standard, nor will I attack DWS on any her “controversies.” She is the head of your party, not mine. I have no reason what so ever to care about what she does. But the Democratic President of the United States does. He needs the party to be confident in their leadership. If the party brass isn’t comfortable with DWS for whatever the reason, then something needs to be done.

Regardless, a wardrobe is a minor expense with little to no substantive impact on a national party that raises tends of millions of dollars. The wardrobe "issue" might be important if it was a part of a broader story of financial mismanagement that is costing Democrats because of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. But as the article itself pointed out, "She has overseen the integration of key elements of the Obama campaigns, including its voter file and data programs. After being left with $25 million in bills from the Obama campaign, the DNC enters the fall with the debt cleared and over $7 million on hand. She’s started new efforts to build relationships with labor and small business leaders and prioritized the DNC’s outreach to female voters." By this accounting, Obama owes Debbie Wasserman Schultz $25 million. The article also notes, "they had originally picked her largely to help win the women’s vote and avert problems with Jewish donors, and both had indeed happened." So basically, she's raised tens of millions dollars and done politically what she was hired to do, and yet they still treat her rudely because of her wardrobe? Sounds like classic sexism to me. The woman did what you hired her for but it's still not good enough, because of some frivolous bullsh**t like who pays for her wardrobe. Therefore, treat her condescendingly, like telling her "I'm the president of the United States." As if she doesn't know that?

Again, this is not a sexism issue, even if sexism exists. This is a purely political move. As I am not a Democrat, I hold no right to comment on DWS’s leadership ability or the internal workings of the party, nor do I have any information to comment on it to begin with. All I know is that a lot of Democrats are, for whatever reason, unhappy with her leadership. Obama is now facing another Sebelius conundrum-can Debbie and give the Democratic Party a morale defeat in the midst of an uncertain midterm election, or keep her on throughout the election and hope that some certainty can come. I suspect Obama will continue to fluff her up just like he did Sebelius, than will cut her loose ahead of 2016, especially if the Democrats fail to maintain a majority in the Senate this year.[/quote]

Sorry but "for whatever reason" is not good enough. Obama may be the head of the Democratic party, but the Democratic party is not a dictatorship. Members are free to disagree with party leaders and question their reasons for acting how they do against other party members, especially the party chair. The fact of the matter is, by all the objective metrics presented in this article, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been successful as DNC chair, and the biggest criticism of her (wardrobe) is one which most likely would not be occurring if she were a man. So I call BS. If there is a massive legit beef against her, this article has not done a good job of explaining it.

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Well, being called "abrasive" is one of the hallmarks of the double standard that ambitious, aggressive women (like the type you are likely to find in politics) are faced with. That doesn't justify either Obama or Hillary treating her rudely. By the way, the supposed reason that Hillary doesn't like her is that, at the end of Hillary's campaign when it was clear that Hillary had already lost, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who had endorsed Hillary, reached out to the Obama camp. Oh, what a crime. Reaching out to the party's inevitable nominee. As much as I like Hillary, if this story is true, Hillary is the one being petty and stupid.

What's more insulting: assuming that the president of the United States should be informed by the chair of the DNC that the DNC has paid off its debt, or that the chair of the DNC doesn't know who the president of the United States is? The former, it is plausible that the president of the United States is slightly less aware of the DNC's finances than its own chair. The latter, even schoolchildren know that Obama is president. Obama was far more rude and condescending to Wasserman Schultz in that exchange, if true. Yet this anecdote is supposed to reflect badly on her? Bull. sh**t.

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Precisely! The very reasons why DWS was selected to chair the DNC in the first place are the reasons why she should be supported in her goals for a House leadership position, not "turned against": she has strong networks among women and Jewish voters, she is young, she is progressive, and she is from a large swing state where the state Democratic party needs to be strengthened. Yes, there are areas where she needs to improve, such as being better at media appearances, but this out of the blue article is unjustified and must be incredibly hurtful. Democrats need to get it together and stop eating our own.