If Sebelius had left any earlier it would have been obvious that she had been pushed out. Sebelius sendoff: Everybody wins

The White House isn’t just celebrating the big Obamacare recovery and the 7.5 million signups for health coverage.

They’re also breathing a quiet sigh of relief that they were able to ride out another huge political problem: how to let Kathleen Sebelius quietly slip out the door.


The handling of Sebelius’s resignation offers a new twist on the Washington tradition of presidential departures. Usually, it’s awkward and the Cabinet secretary, or whoever’s being shown the door, is clearly leaving under a cloud. No one asks whether they’re leaving on their own or were pushed, because it’s obvious.

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With Sebelius, President Barack Obama waited so long that they were both able to spin a happier storyline — that she was leaving after turning hard times for Obamacare into a last-minute victory.

“Yes, we lost the first quarter of open enrollment period with the problems with HealthCare.gov — and they were problems,” Obama said at a Rose Garden ceremony Friday that had the atmosphere of a going-away party for Sebelius. “But under Kathleen’s leadership, her team at HHS turned the corner, got it fixed, got the job done, and the final score speaks for itself: There are 7.5 million people across the country that have the security of health insurance, most of them for the very first time.”

“That’s because of the woman standing next to me here today. And we are proud of her for that,” Obama said.

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The way the Obama White House handled the Sebelius exit worked well for both Sebelius — who was able to leave on something of a high note — and for the conflict-averse Obama. But it’s not likely to be a model that translates easily to other presidential departures.

It worked in this case because the situation was unique, Democratic strategists say. As awkward as it may have been for Obama to sit through all of the calls for Sebelius’s resignation, she really couldn’t have left sooner without causing bigger practical problems for the rollout. And in this case, there happened to be good news at the end to peg to the departure.

“It’s not quite like Jim Brown leaving at the peak of his career,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who specializes in damage control, referencing the legendary Cleveland Browns running back. “But certainly the timing of it puts everyone in a position where they’re winners … as much as you could, given the situation.”

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The idea that Sebelius can still claim full credit for the health care law’s achievements isn’t going to fly with a lot of the public. Obamacare opponents — and some angry Democrats — insist that Sebelius had to go. She was, after all, the Health and Human Services secretary who let the broken website go live — and define Obama’s signature program with an image of incompetence.

But now, because of the timing, some liberals could actually push back against the “Sebelius leaves because of failed website” storyline. What failure, many of them asked on Friday? She helped bring health care to more than 7 million people.

“Secretary Sebelius’ legacy will be defined by her tireless advocacy and the millions of people who now have access to affordable health care,” Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, said in a statement. The hashtag #ThanksKathleen appeared all over Twitter.

And there’s another factor: If Sebelius had left any earlier — say, in October or November, during the worst days of the website failures — it would have been obvious that she had been pushed out. Plus, administration allies say, it would have created huge practical problems, since Obama would suddenly have a nomination fight on the hands at the same time that the website was still spewing smoke.

“If she had left in the middle of all the problems, imagine trying to go through a nomination process while they were still trying to fix the website,” said Bill Burton, a Democratic strategist and former Obama spokesman.

Sebelius’s departure was carefully stage-managed so it wouldn’t look like the usual awkward presidential departures. A senior administration official said the decision to announce it with a big public ceremony in the Rose Garden, with Obama giving a lengthy speech singing her praises, was deliberate — it was supposed to discourage any speculation that she was being booted off the stage.

Another sign of that spirit was when White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett dined with Sebelius at the Blue Duck Tavern Thursday night, a quiet show of support as her resignation was becoming public.

At times, they almost seemed to go overboard in their praise to make up for their lack of enthusiastic shout-outs to Sebelius in the past. “She deserves it!” Jarrett gushed to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell after discussing the public sendoff.

But the timing of the announcement was also significant in another way. By leaking the news on Thursday and then allowing time for a public ceremony on Friday — complete with a smiling handoff to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who’s being nominated to take her place — the Obama administration sent an important signal that it wasn’t trying to bury the news, according to Lehane.

In a traditional ousting, the news would have been dumped on Friday night, Lehane said. “If it had been on a Friday, it would have been obvious that she was being shoved out the door,” he said.

Adminstration officials also point out that Sebelius is just tired after more than five years as HHS secretary — including one battle after another over the Affordable Care Act, numerous congressional hearings, and a high profile job that gives her little time to be completely “off.”

That doesn’t mean there was no tension between the White House and Sebelius, of course. Not everyone at the White House has been impressed with her management skills or grasp of policy. And before Friday, there wasn’t much evidence of enthusiasm for Sebelius in Obama’s public statements, other than to defend her on the grounds that she “doesn’t write code.”

But on Friday, the White House managed to blur the lines so much with the orchestration of her departure that everyone could see what they wanted to see.

When presidents get rid of people, you usually know it. George W. Bush shoved Donald Rumsfeld out the door the day after the 2006 elections, when the Democrats took control of Congress. No question about why the unpopular defense secretary was leaving.

Same with Michael Brown, the Federal Emergency Management Agency director who resigned under fire in 2005 after bungling the response to Hurricane Katrina. Bush’s infamous praise for him a week earlier — “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” — came back to haunt Sebelius last fall, when her critics on the right said she had become Obama’s “Brownie.”

This time, though, Republicans were able to claim that Sebelius was pushed out because of the website disaster — as Ted Cruz did on Friday — while Democrats stuck to the notion that Sebelius could still be proud of the recovery and the 7.5 million signups.

Ron Pollack of the consumer group Families USA, a key Obama administration ally, said he didn’t think Sebelius should have left in the first place. But if it had to happen, he said, the administration did the right thing by letting her finish the enrollment season rather than easing her out while the website repairs were still happening.

“A major transition during that time would have been disruptive,” said Pollack. “It was critical that everyone work on this with one focus, and one focus only, and that was to make the rest of the enrollment period as successful as possible.”