What's not different in this incident is his overall response - blame Bush and promise to do something about it.
“This predates my presidency. When I was in the Senate, I was on the Veterans Affairs Committee. I heard first-hand veterans who were not getting the kinds of services and benefits that they had earned,” the President said to the White House Press Corps.
Soon after he was elected the President and Vice President Biden supposedly put together a plan to fix the VA. In a document recently discovered by World Net Daily, and labeled the Obama-Biden Plan from the Office of the President Elect, Obama makes a series of promises to veterans, including:
* Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. Transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.
* Strengthen VA Care: Make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible. Improve care for polytrauma vision impairment, prosthetics, spinal cord injury, aging, and women’s health.
* Fully Fund VA Medical Care: Fully fund the VA so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it. Establish a world-class VA Planning Division to avoid future budget shortfalls.
It's not like the President didn't know what was going on. In a 2007 speech he said “Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America’s commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end.”
In a letter dated May 21, 2013, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., warned the President: “an alarming pattern of serious and significant patient care issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the country … (including) failures, deceptions, and lack of accountability permeating VA’s healthcare system … I believe your direct involvement and leadership is required.”
The simple fact that he said this situation predates his presidency proves he knew. But he did nothing in the five years since his election.
The fact is President Obama is great at promising things. He promised to "get to the bottom" of the Benghazi murders. He promised to get to the bottom of the IRS targeting scandal. He promised to get to the bottom of the Justice Department spying on the Associated Press and FOX Reporter James Rosen. He promised to get to the bottom of the Fast and Furious scandal. But that's all he does - promise. Then he waits what he feels is an appropriate time and pretends like they never happened. Then he calls them "phony scandals."
I'll be curious to see where this one goes. He hasn't called it a phony scandal yet so he apparently is taking it seriously. But what is he going to do? Since the phony waiting lists are in over 60 VA hospitals it seems certain that it's a conspiracy but VA administrators, created to boost their year-end performance bonuses. If that's true, and it certainly seems to be, then in my humble opinion the actions of those administrators are criminal and they should not only be fired but prosecuted.
Rather than blame others I hope President Obama will utter those words made infamous by another Democrat a few years back - "The buck stops here." Those words were uttered by Attorney General Janet Reno after the Waco incident. General Shinseki sort of said it when he resigned but Obama will never take blame for anything.
I'm sure it came as a big surprise to all of you, as it did to me, when the White House announced that President Obama found out about the VA problems on the news. Even though he knew about the long waiting lists and other problems in 2007, and promised to fix them in 2008 (and in various speeches since then), he found out about it on the news. He finds out about everything on the news. Obviously he watches FOX since they're the only ones who report anything negative about the Obama administration.
When it comes to politicians making un-kept promises I think President Obama should get a "Best In Class" award. The only promise he has kept during his presidency is the one about changing America. He's definitely doing that - and not in a good way. President Obama should resign. I may be mistaken but I think I'd rather have Biden as President than another two and a half years of Obama. I'm not sure America will survive another two and a half years of treachery...
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