AP perpetuates lies about Walter Reed

Yeah, this is getting very tiring. TSO called me this morning to tell me that Associated Press is still clinging to the lie that Walter Reed Army Medical Center was at the center of controversy over the way they treated soldiers. I wrote about it back in July and nothing has changed. They have an article in the Washington Times this morning about Walter Reed celebration it’s 100th year (which I also wrote about back in March).

Kamala Lane writes;

But many of these new features were made after published reports revealed in 2007 that Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at the site were receiving substandard treatment.

Kamala, it was NEVER about treatment – if you did even rudimentary research, you’d know the only real complaint was about TWO ROOMS in the OUTPATIENT TRANSIENT BARRACKS. There have never been complaints about the medical treatment that soldiers received at Walter Reed.

Of course, this is just more Bush-bashing, the AP’s favorite sport – especially now that the Bush Administration is gone.

Lane makes it sound like somehow the media is responsible for the outstanding care that the troops get at Walter Reed – nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the journalists who write about Walter Reed have never set foot on the campus, they’ve never talked to soldiers who won’t complain to them and they don’t want to hear success stories.

One mother of a wounded soldier told the Washington Post that no one at the hospital could help her find her way around the city or tell her the condition of her son because she didn’t speak English. She claims she had to use a taxi driver as a translator.

First of all, there are no Spanish-speaking taxi drivers in DC. Pakistani? Somali? Sure – but no Spanish. Secondly, her son was in my wife’s ward – my Panamanian wife who helped the woman even when my wife was off duty. But did the Washington Post check her story? Nope.

Now the Associated Press uses the Walter Reed fantasy as a foregone conclusion. That’s what passes for journalism these days – legends and faerie tales.

Category: Media, Support the troops, Walter Reed