When the ACA website didn’t work President Obama apologized and said I will fix it. When Chris Christie was confronted with Bridgegate he claimed it wasn’t his fault.
If one wants to understand why Chris Christie’s Bridgegate has turned into a national scandal that is bordering on an out of control tire fire and Barack Obama was able to overcome and rebound from the ACA website glitches, the difference is leadership.
Gov. Christie tried to sell his firing of staff as leadership, but a close examination of his remarks during his press conference yesterday tells a different story.
I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the conduct that they exhibited is completely unacceptable and showed a lack of respect for the appropriate role of government and for the people that were trusted to serve.
….
But I don’t want any of you to confuse what I’m saying this morning. Ultimately I am responsible for what happens under my watch — the good and the bad. And when mistakes are made, then I have to own up to them and take the action that I believe is necessary in order to remediate them. As I mentioned to you earlier, I spent all day yesterday digging into talking to folks and getting to the bottom of things. I know there was much discussion yesterday about what was I doing.
Well, let me tell you, everybody, I was blindsided yesterday morning. I was done with my workout yesterday morning and got a call from my communications director at about 8:50, 8:55, informing me of this story that had just broken on the Bergen Record website. That was the first time I knew about this. That was the first time I had seen any of the documents that were revealed yesterday.
It was a neat political trick by the governor. He claimed to take responsibility for what happened, while claiming he knew nothing and passing the buck to his staff.
Compare Christie’s remarks with how President Obama took responsibility for the ACA website issues during a speech in Boston.
On October 30, the president said,
Now, this marketplace is open now. Insurance companies are competing for that business. The deal is good. The prices are low. But let’s face it, we’ve had a problem. The website hasn’t worked the way it’s supposed to over these last couple of weeks. And as a consequence, a lot of people haven’t had a chance to see just how good the prices for quality health insurance through these marketplaces really are.
Now, ultimately this website, HealthCare.gov, will be the easiest way to shop for and buy these new plans because you can see all these plans right next to each other and compare prices and see what kind of coverage it provides. But look, it — there’s no denying it.
Right now, the website is too slow, too many people have gotten stuck. And I am not happy about it. And neither are a lot of Americans who need health care. And they’re trying to figure out how they can sign up as quickly as possible.
So there’s no excuse for it. And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP. We are working overtime to improve it every day — every day. And more people are successfully buying these new plans online than they were a couple of weeks ago. And I expect more people will be able to buy conveniently online every single day as we move forward. We’re going to get these problems resolved.
The difference between the two responses is that President Obama took responsibility for what went wrong, and vowed to make things right. Governor Christie talked about taking responsibility, but his actions suggested plausible deniability and blaming his staff. Christie also never talked about how he was going to make things right.
When the ACA website failed to launch, President Obama could have fired HHS Secretary Sibelius and a bunch of other people. He could have done exactly what Christie did. The president could have held a press conference to announce the firings, and then tried to wash his hands of the whole thing.
But as Gov. Christie is finding out, blaming the staff usually only makes things worse. Christie’s press conference has turned the scandal into a national story. His comments yesterday backfired, and the scandal is mushrooming into calls for a federal investigation.
President Obama overcame his crisis because he took responsibility and followed through. Chris Christie is sinking because he has refused to own Bridgegate. Barack Obama showed what real executive leadership looks like, while Chris Christie is failing his first leadership test ahead of 2016.
Obama is president because he said, “I will fix it.” Chris Christie may never be president because he decided to say, “I was blindsided.” When push came to shove President Obama was a real leader, while Chris Christie chose put his political survival ahead of leading his state.
Chris Christie isn’t Barack Obama, and he is showing himself not to be presidential material.
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