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" Kathleen Sebelius -- who once was governor of where-the-fk-else?-Kansas, which I find the most singularly amazing thing about her biography, given the donkey-show that has erupted in that state subsequent to her tenure of office there -- is leaving her job as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the simple fact of her departure seems to have the entire political elite a bit confoozled. The &amp;quot;centrist&amp;quot; opinion seems to be that Sebelius&amp;#039;s record at HHS will be &amp;quot;tainted&amp;quot; by the disastrous roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, but also that she&amp;#039;s leaving on a bit of a high, since the ACA hit its enrollment goals, and people are starting to like the provisions of it that have come to affect their lives, and that maybe even some Republicans are realizing that the law is here to stay. This headline, however, seems to me to be a bit unfair. Yes, technically, she is resigning after troubles with over the health site, but she is resigning well after those events, which is what has confoozled people, especially those who were calling for her dismissal eight or nine months ago. Ms. Sebelius was not Mr. Obama&amp;#039;s first choice to lead the department; he wanted former Senator Tom Daschle in the job, but Mr. Daschle withdrew after acknowledging that he had underpaid his taxes for several years. She was hailed as a gifted political leader in Kansas who could work with legislators of both parties. But those skills were less evident in Washington, and she became a more distant figure within the administration. In addition to the political battles over the passage and carrying out of the Affordable Care Act, she clashed with conservatives over contraception, and faced frequent calls for her political head by Republicans after the health care website failed to function properly last year. Sometimes, neutrality of language is just too freaking hilarious. Sebelius &amp;quot;clashed with conservatives over contraception&amp;quot;? Glorioski, Sandy, how could she possibly have wandered into that controversy? Surely, those conservatives -- the ones who are now screaming about &amp;quot;religious liberty&amp;quot; and driving nails into their own palms -- didn&amp;#039;t want that &amp;quot;clash.&amp;quot; (Frankly, I give Sebelius big points for standing in against this unmitigated faith-based bushwah.) Political journalists remain the only people over the age of nine who believe that everything around them happens through pure coincidence. Certainly, she has to carry the weight of the botched launch of the website. It happened on her watch. It is to her credit that she never blamed anyone else and that she stood in and listened while congresscritters railed at her and, by the end of her watch, 10 million new people were enrolled in health-care coverage. This is a not-inconsiderable legacy. And considering that various functionaries of the Avignon Presidency which preceded this one, the people who presided over the &amp;quot;botched rollout&amp;quot; of an illegal war, and who presided over the constitutional &amp;quot;glitch&amp;quot; that was our torture program, are still out there soaking up the speaking fees and writing op-eds for Fred Hiatt, I think Sebelius&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;legacy&amp;quot; can stand with that of her immediate contemporaries. I do not envy her replacement, Sylvia Burwell, her confirmation hearings, which will devolve into five-alarms-in-Shanghai almost immediately. The Times is already hoping against hope:  But the Affordable Care Act faces a range of obstacles, political and otherwise, in the months ahead, and Mr. Obama is hoping that Ms. Burwell can smoothly steer the department and bring stability to its operations. The Times is occasionally a scream. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28259/kathleen-sebelius-says-goodbye/>