Updated 6 August 2015
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert "Battlefield Bob" McDonald is not only a
consummate liar but he’s just too arrogant and full of himself to be
effective. One thing is for sure, he has
“gone native” and become part of the VA bureaucracy he was appointed to
reform. His arrogance was “on parade” at
the 11 February Congressional hearing on his agency’s
budget when he got defensive and snapped at Rep Mike Coffman (R-CO) when
he CORRECTLY suggested McDonald had accomplished little in his first six months
on the job. Coffman accurately accused McDonald of “glossing over” the problems
that still plague services for veterans and said he thinks McDonald “will not
have made a difference in changing the culture” by the end of the Obama
administration.
“I ran a large company, sir, what
have you done?” McDonald said to in a heated exchange. In all fairness, McDonald was CEO of Procter
& Gamble but Coffman had founded a successful property-management firm and
served as Colorado’s
secretary of state and treasurer before being elected to Congress in 2009. He also had two combat tours as a Marine!
Then on NBC
“Meet the Press” on 15 Feb. 2015 “Battlefield Bob” uttered this lie: “Nine hundred people have been fired since I
became secretary. We’ve got 60 people that we fired who have manipulated wait
times.”
Thankfully,
within days Washington Post Fact Checker Michelle Ye Hee Lee blew the whistle on “Battlefield Bob”
and awarded him the prestigious Four Pinocchios for wildly inflating his
“firing” statistics.
The WaPo pointed out that the
VA is the largest non-military Cabinet agency with more
than 340,000 employees (as of September 2014) so even if 900 employees were
fired, they accounted for less than 0.3 percent of all VA employees. Plus, in
fiscal year 2013, there were 2,247 VA employees fired in that one year -- two
and half times more than McDonald’s 900 figure and before a massive systemic
problem was found – and that is about the VA’s normal annual dismissals for
misconduct such as insubordination and chronic absenteeism.
6 August 2015 Update - Since this article was posted, almost Six Months has elapsed and Michelle Ye Hee Lee has done a follow-up where she Fact Checked a 20 July 2015 Statement by Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush where in a speech he stated "only two people had been fired for lying about the wait times." After the Fact Checker's extensive research she affirmed that Jeb got it CORRECT and awarded him a Geppetto Checkmark although she did note that by the time of her 6 August article that number has risen to THREE! See below where her 6 Aug is posted.
Remember, two days
after McDonald took office Congress passed legislation authorizing him to
expedite disciplinary actions for senior executives. It was notoriously
difficult to fire senior executives at the VA — at a one-fourth rate than the
firing rate for all federal agencies -- so the goal was to allow the VA chief
to replace bad actors quickly, especially ones connected to the scandal.
In his “Meet the Press” interview, McDonald
lied when he said 60 employees who manipulated wait times were fired. Actually, as of his 15 February TV appearance
only eight employees had been removed and even this is misleading because all
except one were low level employees and he had used his new personnel authority
to remove senior executives only once to fire someone for anything related to
the VA scandal — that one was James Talton, director of Central Alabama’s VA.
Hence, with seven (7) months on the job, McDonald has done little to fix
the VA scandals and seems more interested in protecting the VA workforce than
rooting out the deadwood. This is what you get when you select faux-Vets like "Battlefield Bob" McDonald and “Slow to Combat” Slone Gibson as VA Secretary and Deputy Secretary; just what
we need to “help” and “lead” our troops after we’ve been engaged in protracted
combat for the past 14 years. Both are West Pointers that bailed out of uniform
the very second they could after the payback time for their free education -
without ever even serving in a combat zone let alone hearing a shot fired in
anger. Neither even bothered to remain
in the Army Reserve as doing so might someday subject them to danger! So much for "Duty - Honor -
Country!" and “a Cadet does not lie, cheat nor steal or tolerate those
that do!” Both faux-Vets have demonstrated they possess the requisite
detachment to continue the VA’s absolute indifference towards Vets.
Now let’s contrast “Battlefield Bob’s” Military creds with the service
of Mike Coffman (R-CO), the man he “snapped” at during his 11 Feb budget
hearing. Coffman, the son of a career
Army officer, enlisted in the Army Infantry in 1972 at age 17. When he left active duty at the end of his
enlistment to attend college, he remained in the Army Reserves. Upon graduation in 1979, he transferred to
the Marine Corps and served on active duty as an Infantry Officer until 1983
but remained in the Marine Reserves retiring in 1994 at the rank of Major. During the Gulf War he was called to active
duty and actually SAW COMBAT as a Marine light armored Infantry officer. In 2005 he returned to Active Duty to serve
in the Iraq War where he
supported elections and helped establish interim local governments in the
western Euphrates Valley; he completed his duty in Iraq in 2006.
Now, who between “Battlefield Bob” and “Major Mike” possesses the better
political acumen and Military credibility to look after the interests of
Veterans? In the opinion of this Combat
Vet (with a CIB) “Major Mike” gets my vote!
Maybe it’s time “Battling Bob” and his Number Two, “Slow to Combat” Slone
go back to working with the USO where they came from and the President find a
new secretary that is up to the job – hopefully someone that’s been steeled by
Combat!
But the best example of “Battlefield Bob’s” incompetence is contained in
Michelle
Ye Hee Lee Washington Post Fact Checker article so rather than retelling it
myself, I’ll just attach it below (after the 6 Aug added Bush article) so she can tell it in her own words. We should all be grateful to Michelle for
exposing this lying COWARD for the fraud that he is. We should also thank her for his below follow-up where she points out that the grand total of firings is now THREE!
