Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   11/03/2015

         Vets deserve better from Hillary

There is, and will remain, a troubling aspect to Hillary Clinton’s “modus operandi,” if you will, for dealing with controversies, scandals and evidence of corruption. It was revealed in a pulling-back-the-curtain moment after her Congressional testimony over the Benghazi attacks, in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. A friendly media sycophant like Maddow can be counted on to provide the soothing confirmation of victimhood that someone subjected to a marathon hearing—Clinton endured grueling questions over 11 hours—would like to receive.

S. E. Cupp: “The conversation started, naturally, with a little flattery. ‘You’re the only human being I know of on Earth that has done 11 straight hours,’ Maddow gushed. ‘What did you do after?’ A beaming Clinton replied, ‘Well, I had my whole team come over to my house and we sat around eating Indian food and drinking wine and beer. That’s what we did. It was great.’

“Message received. She won’t let the Republicans—her enemies, as she calls them—ruin her night, let alone her campaign for President. Spiking the football no doubt pleased Clinton’s supporters, but for the folks who are still deeply disturbed about the security failures in Benghazi and Clinton’s role in either creating or concealing them, her tone seemed maybe a little too glib.

“Blame that characterization on partisan politics if you’d like. But Clinton’s habitual dismissal of patently troubling issues—from questionable business dealings at the Clinton Foundation to her use of a private server—has gotten her into trouble more than once. The blasé ‘there’s nothing to see here’ defense, especially when there’s inarguably plenty to see, makes her look smug, unaccountable and entitled.”

Comments later in the interview proved that Clinton “still has very serious problems on her hands.” Maddow, asking about the systemic failures, scandals and tragedies at the Department of Veterans Affairs, elicited a remarkable and astounding response: “You know, I don’t understand why we have such a problem, because there have been a number of surveys of veterans and, overall, veterans who do get treated are satisfied with their treatment.” Clinton didn’t name the surveys and certainly never referred to veterans she has talked to.

Perhaps Maddow was thinking of the widely reported figure of 300,000 veterans who died while waiting for treatment (over what I assume is a long period of years), rather than the ones who have been seen and treated in a timely manner. It is indisputable that the VA’s laxity, incompetence and systemic failures in delivering health care to America’s veterans have been documented, reported on and acknowledged throughout the political and media world. The problems didn’t start with Obama’s tenure but Bush’s people not only responded to problems but also handed an unvarnished report of the VA’s failures to incoming Obama officials.

Then, just like Hillary’s attempts to blame the security lapses in Libya on inadequate funding by Republicans—a contention utterly disproved when it was shown that security decisions at America’s embassies were arbitrarily determined by Clinton’s State Department—she lapsed into knee jerk partisan attacks. Defending what she sees as the VA’s many untold successes, she continued: “Now, nobody would believe that from the coverage that you see, and the constant berating of the VA that comes from Republicans in part in pursuit of this ideological agenda that they have. It’s not been as widespread as it has been made out to be.”

Look up “Clinton shrugs off the deaths of 300,000 veterans,” and “After Clinton Minimizes VA Troubles, Three Reports Expose Shortfalls Across Country.” The inarguable fact that many veterans receive adequate or better care, at VA hospitals, does nothing to erase reported shortfalls from Alaska to California, Arizona and across America. Republicans and sincere reformers advocate allowing veterans free access to the wider private health care system if the VA delays timely treatment—days can be the life-saving difference to a suicidal veteran.

It is a shamelessly false assertion that Republicans are “in pursuit of this ideological agenda” to privatize the VA system, or that Republicans are failing to properly fund the VA. As is often the case, governmental agencies cry that they are under funded on the one hand, while on the other hand they provide evidence of mismanagement of the funds they already receive.

“The VA itself reported more than $2 billion in waste and fraud in fiscal year 2012, including $7.2 million it spent in FY 2010 on unneeded computers. Since 2010, the VA has carried over annual surpluses from as little as $500 million all the way up to $1.5 billion. The night before the 2013 government shutdown, it bought $3.5 million in furniture so as not to lose that money in the next year’s budget.”

The left may have an ideological blind spot as shown by Democratic/Socialist candidate Bernie Sanders, who called it a tragedy but likewise minimized the problem: “the VA sees six and a half million people a year. Are some people going to be treated badly? Are some people going to die because of poor treatment in the VA? Yes.” Hey, Bernie, they’re “veterans.” Moreover, this is the inevitable attitude of government hacks towards recipients of their health care.

Hillary’s mouthpieces walked back her comments, changing nothing. Nonpartisan vets advocates in Stand Watch: “This is absurd. One needs to acknowledge the enormity of the problem before it can be fixed.” John McCain: “If Hillary Clinton really believes the comments that she made, I don’t see how any veteran who cares about their fellow veterans…could support her quest for being commander in chief.” Well said, Senator McCain.