Obama: The Bystander-in-Chief

In what has become a familiar tactic for this administration, President Obama tried to duck responsibility for the botched roll out of his health care reform by claiming he had no clue the critical government website was hopelessly flawed.

Yet insurance industry experts had been publicly warning for months the web portal was burdened with glitches.  The digital platform had failed hundreds of internal tests, still Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius green-lighted the aborted launch.

The government, Obama's government, belly flopped in its effort to deliver the insurance enrollment system it promised.  Instead of accepting responsibility, Obama and his mouthpiece Jay Carney assured the nation the president was uninvolved, despite warning signs he should have exercised due diligence.

This president has adopted this same head-in-the-sand defense before.

Name a scandal and the president has pleaded ignorance. Benghazi. Mexican gun-running.  NSA snooping on U.S. citizens.  Tapping reporters phones. IRS blacklisting of conservative political groups. Government spying on leaders of nations. In each case, Obama feigned enlightenment.

Apparently, the president wants Americans to believe he is a mere bystander, not the chief executive of the nation.  The sign on the desk in the Oval Office must read:  "I disavow all knowledge that a buck ever visited here, much less stopped."

He certainly had every motivation to learn first-hand about the roll out of the website.  His name has become synonymous with the law. It is the top achievement cited by his administration and the Democrat Party nearly five years into his presidency.

How could he have been so blind to what so many insiders knew?  

The answer is the president deliberately put distance between himself and the flawed website because of the political connections to the contractor responsible for the debacle.  Obama feared a major scandal, if the nature of the relationship with the website's architect was exposed.

In the days after the fiasco, news stories began to surface that a senior executive at the website contractor CGI Federal had ties to First Lady Michelle Obama.  The executive and former classmate, Toni Townes-Whitely, appears to have exploited her cozy relationship.

Townes-Whitely joined the Canadian-based CGI in May of 2010, less than two months after the president penned his signature on the health care law.  Soon after her arrival, the firm received a no bid contract for $678 million for work on the website and related services.

The selection of the company appears curious in light of recent revelations that CGI fumbled a health care system project for the providence of Ontario in Canada.  After missed deadlines and other setbacks, the Ontario government pulled the plug on the $46.2 million project.

Despite the bungled venture, the administration handed the contract to CGI to build a transaction-based website, like hundreds that already exist on the internet.  This did not involve new technology or sophisticated software. It should have been a routine project for a competent tech firm.

In the months leading up to the catastrophic launch, White House visitor logs show Townes-Whitely had a least four meetings with senior administration officials from April to June.  Did she forewarn the White House about the impending disaster?  The administration and Townes-Whitely remain mum.

In the harsh spotlight of public scrutiny, it is more than a little suspicious that one of the largest government contracts for such a high-profile project was awarded to a non-U.S. based business without a competitive bid, despite its less than sterling performance in the health care arena.

As usual, the administration that once promised to be the "most transparent in history" has stiff-armed requests by House committees anxious to look deeper into the the matter.  Secretary Sebelius' testimony before Congress about the website collapse stands as a tutorial in obfuscation.

Americans shouldn't expect Sebelius' boss President Obama to shed any light either on this latest scandal.  He has already admitted he is just an innocent bystander.