"I am as frustrated and angry as anyone," claims Kathleen Sebelius, apologizing... stalling for time...

"You deserve better. I apologize. I am accountable to you for fixing these problems, and I’m committed to earning your confidence back by fixing the site.”

In the Washington Post account, it says: "She pledged that the glitches are 'fixable.'"

Did she say "glitches"? I'd like to know, because I think they need to move on to a new word. "Glitches" is so 3 weeks ago. It was intended, back then, in the early days of HealthCare.gov, to calm us... to palliate... and it just doesn't work that way any more.

Also old and increasingly intolerable: politicians claiming to be as or more emotional that the people they are hurting.

At least Sebelius toned it down a step from Obama's "no one is madder than me." It's possible to step it up and present oneself as the angriest person. Even Obama did not go there. He merely said no one is madder. So maybe some people are equally mad. Sebelius's rhetoric seems milder, but in fact, it too is a claim of matching the level of anger of the most angry person.

I know it's the old empathy routine, but I have no empathy for them and their empathy routine. For one thing, these people are actually pretty calm, and given the amount of time they had leading up to the opening of the website, it's not believable that they approached their task with great energy and passion. It seems to me that the timeline was set for political reasons, to skirt the 2012 elections and to make good-seeming things hit at the point when it would help most for the 2014 elections.

For another thing, would you really want the angriest person in the world working on your incredibly complicated technical problems? I know most people don't experience the images in language as concretely as I do, but in my mind, when the President of the United States says there is no one madder than he is, I picture a total lunatic in the White House.



Okay, now, you can pull Kathleen's head out of the teapot. She's joined the fellowship of politicos who assure us they're at the top level of madness.

Hey! Teapot. Nice image:

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked....

Alice had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house...

The White House....

... it was so large a house that she did not like to go near till she had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom.

Yeah, we're calling that "the blue pill." Obama said you're going to need it.

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it; a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep....

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter; "it's very easy to take more than nothing."...

"At any rate, I'll never go there again!" said Alice, as she picked her way through the wood. "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"

So... find a better tea party.