By now, we should all be aware that retired Army General Eric Shinseki has resigned his post in the Obama administration as Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs. Press Secretary Jay Carney, who himself has turned in his resignation, said that the President holds people ‘fully accountable and that is what is taking place.’
Are we expected to listen and believe that fabricated fiction? Mr. Shinseki, a soldier and bureaucrat since his graduation from West Point in 1965 will have abundant retirement and healthcare benefits for life. Government accountability is the equivalent of paid vacation or early retirement. A government worker can perform incompetently for years and retire with fabulous benefits.
Mr. Shinseki was selected for his job as head of VA operations immediately after President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. His appointment was based not just on his credentials as a former four-star General but because he was an Obama supporter. Coming from Hawaii, a bastion of liberalism, and with policy differences with the Bush II administration, he was a favorite of the liberal left and a shoo-in for the job. The mantra in politics is ‘the adversary of my adversary is my friend.’
It didn’t take long for the retired General to emulate Mr. Obama’s predilection for replacing actions with words and supersede results with promises. Both the President and Secretary Shinseki acted surprised by the release of information about veteran’s waiting for appointments and of 40 reported deaths at the Phoenix VA medical facility.
The medical care mess that the Veteran’s Administration has been perpetuating is now clearly visible by 317 million citizens (and the world). It is a model, a microcosm of what Obamacare will become in the not-too-distant future. Many veterans stood in line, wrote letters, asked for help and months and years later, they received no assistance; some died. This is called rationed care where the logical outcome is death by bureaucracy.
A surgeon who has been involved with VA medical activities recounts the story of an orthopedic surgeon at a VA hospital who enlisted fellow residents to clean the operating rooms between patients. Instead of receiving praise, the surgeon was reprimanded by the chief of surgery for making federal workers look bad. At another VA hospital, a urologist and a resident looked up patient records themselves when department workers said they ‘couldn’t find them.’
The IG has published 19 audits regarding wait-time at the VA since 2005. Congress has held numerous hearings and following the one in May 2013, House Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller wrote to the President outlining deception and other problems infecting the VA healthcare system. There has been an abundance of anecdotal and empirical evidence emanating from the VA for years about the problems that have ‘suddenly surfaced.’
In the mid-1950’s, the Omar Bradley Commission criticized the VA for its failure to adjust to new programs. A blue-ribbon panel in 1993 mentioned ‘unacceptable delays’ at the VA. In 2007 a commission co-chaired by Bob Dole and Donna Shalala pointed out ‘delays and gaps in treatment and services.’ With this background we have a retired general and sitting President fixated on management by trite words and phrases from a teleprompter rather than by actions and results.
Obama and Shinseki knew or should have known about these problems of errant behavior. And yet, reports indicate that millions of dollars in bonuses had been dispensed at facilities where serious delays and other problems are systemic. Should we believe that death by bureaucracy is simply fortuitous, collateral misfortune?
In his speech to the graduating Cadets at West Point, the President boasted that he has found a middle way in foreign policy that is between isolationism and military interventionism. The meaning of that delusion is floundering midway between indecision and uncertainty.
While we fear terrorism from foreign radicals, we are destroying ourselves internally with regulations by fiat, increased government welfare-dependence, family disintegration in absentia, unemployment by choice and 12 to 20 million illegal aliens while the President wrestles with important issues like changing the name of an NFL team.
