>>In this story I see corruption, greed, power, barbarism and now that they've been cornered, I'm seeing the all-too-familliar refrain of deflection and "it's not my fault it's (insert stock bogeyman here)".
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>>>I supposed the only thing that truly surprises me here is that a head has actually rolled.
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/shinseki-apologizes-for-va-health-care-scandal/2014/05/30/e605885a-e7f0-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html
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>It's no secret I don't have much respect for Barack Obama's performance. But today's speech (where he announced Shinseki's resignation) was just blood awful, even worse than the one he did at West Point. Here's the paragraph that stuck out:
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>"But what is absolutely clear is, this one -- this issue of scheduling is one that the reporting systems inside of the VHA did not surface to the level where Rick was aware of it we were able to see it. This was not something that we were hearing when I was traveling around the country, the particular issue of scheduling. And what we’re going to have to do -- part of the review is going to have to be -- to see, how do we make sure that we get information about systems that aren’t working?"
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>This is just as bad as the "if you like your plan, you can keep it" debacle.
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>First, this issue was known back in 2008-2009 when he became president. Second, this statement, in microcosm, is the quintessential reason why this man cannot lead, cannot execute, cannot govern. By saying, "it didn't surface to the level where we could see it", he's basically acknowledging that his people sit back in the proverbial "fat and happy" position and wait for all the sirens to go off. (This is also why they built a complete failure of a web system). "We need to make sure that we get information about systems"....isn't that supposed to be the normal state of operations? When I heard this paragraph, I truly didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream. Anyone using a lame excuse like this should be fired. Pure sloth. If Barack Obama manifestly had set half the tone for performance and execution that he sets in his speeches, these messes would be far less.

The reporting blunder was caused by the whole "We're cutting your budget, but service levels MUST be kept current" thing that goes on at ANY level of gov't and has been going on at the VA all through the Bush (2) years and continued by (mostly) the Repubs during the Obama years blocking spending bills that increased VA spending was attached to. Please note that I'm NOT saying that's the reason they were blocked.

In this case it got translated to "fake the numbers" by middle management so that, at the Washington level, everything looks both hunky AND dory. Then when the people you're verifying the numbers with are the very people who are 'cooking the books', it's very much a case of being told what you want to hear.