The Common Ills: Shinseki, the VA and resignation

Friday, April 05, 2013

Shinseki, the VA and resignation

Kevin A. Hazlett (Harvard Crimson) reports on Linda J. Bilmes' calculations for the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars which includes "$2 trillion in direct costs" which will double or triple as medical expenses for the veterans of the two wars add up. We're on veterans issues.

And a ton of e-mails have come in in the last week or so about Joe Klein. Klein is a columnist for Time magazine. He is not anyone I follow. That's ancient history that can be summed up as: You can write your potboiler and stay anonymous, fine, but if you are a reporter who wrote the potboiler and you go on the record denying it and that's a lie that's exposed, I don't have much faith in you.

That's me. I'm referring to the novel Primary Colors. It's ancient history. I'm not trying to enlist anyone into 'the cause.' That's where I stand and that's why we don't rush to note Joe Klein.

E-mails over the last week or so wanted to note why I wasn't noting that Joe Klein had called for Secretary of the VA Eric Shinseki to step down? Because I hadn't read it. I'm still not reading it, to be honest. I've finally been able to hold my nose long enough to pull up the column and I can grab the first two paragraphs but I'm not going to wade into that column, sorry. It's called "Shinseki Stonewall" and ran March 25th:

Candy Crowley did her best, pressing Shinseki on the 900,000 unprocessed disabilities claims…and he offered the standard VA stonewall: no veteran should have to wait, the backlog will be resolved in 2015. But Crowley did not ask the crucial question: Why aren’t the claims processed according to severity? Why should an Army Ranger who suffered a 100% debilitating traumatic brain injury in Konar Province three years ago still be waiting for his disability check? Why should that Ranger have to wait behind a Vietnam veteran, who is filing a 3rd time claim to get his disability for post-traumatic stress raised from 50% to 60%?
I don’t begrudge Vietnam veterans the right to have their claims re-evaluated. They’ve gotten a historically bum deal. But I’m sure that if you asked these mistreated heroes if they thought those who’d suffered more severe injuries in more recent wars should go to the front of the line, they would say yes, absolutely, a no-brainer.

I'm not a Joe Klein fan. The column's resulted in a ton of commentary. By that measure, the column is a success. Columns exist to get attention. He made a proposal and some agree and some don't and the country's talking.

If it weren't Joe Klein, I think there would be more talk about the column itself as opposed to critiques of him for various reasons (he's a centrist, he's seen by some as a sell-out or caver on Demcoratic issues, etc.).

In terms of his conclusion? Of course, I support it. I actually supported it as Shinseki ended his first year in the post. Do we remember his first scandal? Veterans were attempting to go to college. The checks weren't there. They had to borrow -- some from campus which is a pain but much easier (short term loan on campus) than a private institution. Some tried juggling. This situation in the fall of 2009 was so bad that some veterans couldn't have Christmas with their kids, 2009 Christmas, until 2010 because the checks weren't coming.

Now I'm real sorry that we have the worst press in the world, a bunch of whores who lay at the feet of whomever is in the White House regardless of party, but this was news:

I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230 more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools that were coming together even as certificates were being executed. Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take. We based our numbers on the Montgomery GI Bill which is about a 15 minute procedure. The uh chapter thirty-three procedures about an hour on average, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. So right off the bat, we had some issues with assumptions. Uh, we are still receiving certificates of enrollment. This week alone, we received 36,000 certificates of enrollment coming from schools who are working through the process and we put them into the execute of providing those checks -- three checks.

He arrived in January. That's Eric Shinseki testifying to the House Veterans Affairs Committee on October 14, 2009. When we're speaking about the wars to various groups, veterans issues come up all the time. Shinseki's statement above? Usually a surprise to every group we speak to. The press was at that hearing, I saw them. Some of them reported on it. They just ignored the big news. The big news was veterans were suffering and, in January of 2009, Shinseki knew it was going to happen.

Despite knowing it was going to happen, he did not inform Congress of what was in store and, worse, he allowed the VA to blame veterans for the delay. If you've forgotten, and many have, when the scandal emerged, the VA response was: Veterans aren't filling out their paperwork properly. As a mini-uproar greeted that claim (which was a lie, as became obvious when Shinseki finally faced Congress), the VA attempted to blame colleges.

He should have been fired for that. Maybe if the press had done their damn job and reported the reality that Shinseki knew nine months before the scandal that it was coming and said and did nothing, maybe then he would have been forced out of office?

He should have been. A functioning president would have demanded his resignation.

Instead, he's been allowed to stay in office.

Congress has called for and funded the creation of an electronic record that would follow from enlistment to departure of the service that would go from DoD to VA seamlessly. This would save millions of dollars each year. Which is why Congress has been willing to spend so much funding this development.

Shinseki led Congress to believe this was moving forward. Then Barack's first Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) stepped down and was replaced with his second (Leon Panetta). Months after that, as Panetta's getting ready to leave, Shinseki says he and Panetta have ironed out how to do this. Excuse me, but Shinseki already testified that he ironed this out with Gates.

And I know Panetta. I just got off the phone with one of his aids from that period as Secretary of Defense to confirm what I was going to write. When Shinseki met with Panetta, Panetta said "fine" to everything Gates and Shinseki had already agreed to.

Why?

This is why I didn't need to make the call. I've known Leon for decades. He's not interested in getting credit or 'putting his fingerprint' on something. He's interested in results and getting them as quickly as possible. Anyone who knows Panetta knows that if a solid plan exists, he's waiving it through, he's not going to stop to do some vanity move so he can say, "Oh, do you know what my part was . . ."

Barack now has a third Secretary of Defense (Chuck Hagel). Is there a reason the plan agreed to by Gates and still agreed to by Panetta now needs the approval of Hagel? Or shouldn't it have been started several years ago. This is incompetence. (And I'm being kind and leaving out Shinseki's recent attempt to bail on this -- an attempt he dropped only after facing significant push back from Congress.)

For those reasons and many more, Shinseki should be relieved of his duties.

Joe Klein brings up the backlog which is another reason.

He appears to be arguing that the Vietnam claims are adding to the backlog and that the answer is for Vietnam to wait for . . .

Sorry, if I'm misunderstanding him but I really cannot read him -- for reasons already outlined.

Let's deal with the reality first of all. As the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner, repeatedly noted when he was on the House Veterans Affairs Committee as Chair and as Ranking Member, there should be no Vietnam backlog. Agent Orange claims? There's no need, waive them through. They've been waiting long enough.

This is nonsense.

Klein appears to be in a pit-one-against-other mode. That doesn't need to happen. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America needs to be careful in their wording because if it appears that's what they're doing, they will lose support.

Then you'll find people debating whether this person with a wound from Afghanistan is more in need of VA attention than the person from Vietnam who's been dismissed for 30 or more years? That's not an argument with a winning side and IAVA should avoid getting into it.

If you don't get it, you're Shirley Sellers, a Vietnam veteran, and for 32 years now, you've been waiting for the deserved upgrade in your disability claim status. Someone wants to come along and say, "Oh, yours isn't life threatening, so you're going to wait a little while longer." You've waited 32 years, you've waited long enough.

Again, IAVA shouldn't get into that argument because there is no "winning side." You either fight for all or you end up splintering.

IAVA shouldn't splinter because there one of the few effective groups out there.

Klein's column has resulted in various organizations trashing it.

Big surprise. VFW and American Legion?

They don't do a damn thing with Congress but hold their hands out begging. They don't stand up, they don't argue, they don't advocate. They beg for money. they basically come in the back door, are ushered into the study, stand while everyone else sits and beg for money.

They are the entrenched culture.

(They also have strengths. VFW has many wonderful resources for members -- including assisting in filing claims. But we're focusing on what happens when there's a problem. When there's a problem, the entrenched institutions do nothing. I noted that in the hearing this year where a new 'commander' was praising the ridiculous Alison Hickey of the VA.)

Shinseki needs to be held accountable.

Thus far, he hasn't been.

Joe Klein calling for any Cabinet Secretary to resign is not 'wrong' or 'stupid.' It is a call. He can make an argument that may be strong or weak, but as a columnist, he needs to be writing about things like that. Otherwise, he's as useless as unibrow Gail Collins.

I'll let other determine the strength or weakness of Klein's argument (I can't even read it). But in terms of the call, yeah, Shinseki has been one horrible mistake after another. He has failed to alert Congress of problems even when he knew they were coming. He has been protected by Democrats in Congress -- I'm biting my tongue on the biggest idiot but you know she's got the biggest wig collection of any member of Congress and not one of them appears to fit -- and it hasn't helped veterans one bit.

The following community sites -- plus Pacifica Evening News, Dissident Voice, Susan's On the Edge, Tavis Smiley and Adam Kokesh -- updated last night and this morning: