Matthews to Obama: Obamacare Mess Showed Lack of Accountable, ‘Top-Down Authority System From You’

One of the criticisms thrown President Obama‘s way amidst the Obamacare fallout is that he appears to be more big-picture than hands-on, and that’s why he didn’t see the website issues coming. Chris Matthews pressed Obama on this question of management during their wide-ranging discussion at American University on Thursday.

Matthews brought up the argument that someone should have been the designated “CEO” of Obamacare to oversee the whole thing, instead of blame being thrown around from Kathleen Sebelius to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and asked Obama about his particular style of management.

“It didn’t seem like there was a strong top-down authority system from you… Do you have a relationship with your Cabinet that you have of cracking the whip, and following through, they execute, as you envision they should, or do you envision a COO like Mr. McDonough? What is your system for management?”

The president insisted he has an “open door policy” for anyone who needs to come to him, to “bring me bad news, on time, so I can fix things.” Obama spoke of trying to “consolidate” government and made it more efficient, only for members of Congress to halt that progress so they don’t lose jurisdiction over certain policy issues.

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:

[photo via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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