Washington Post just won’t let it go

Yeah, OK, we get it already, WaPo. After being bombarded for a week now with stories ABOUT ONE FRIGGIN’ BUILDING at Walter Reed, Washington Post is adjusting fire and assaulting the entire veterans care systemin an article entited “It Is Just Not Walter Reed“;

“It is just not Walter Reed,” Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. “The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again.”

Firstly, I’d like to say that it’s certainly not difficult to find a soldier who’ll bitch to the press about anything. In fact, we used to say that if the troops quit bitching, it’s time to worry.

Secondly, where was the damn Washington Post 13 years ago? Do they honestly believe that conditions in Veterans care facilities just got bad on January 20th, 2001? Where were they when I complained about 80-year-old patients were left for hours on gurneys in the hallway of the VA hospital in Syracuse, NY shivering from the cold and covered in a thin sheet back in 1994? 

Where was the Washington Post when I was in the VA hospital in Washington DC back in 2000 and wasn’t fed for more three days – despite my constant harangue? I’ve been in VA facilities since then and conditions have improved immeasurably – despite the fact that President Bush’s Administration has increased the number of eligible veterans 6-fold!

There are still problems (mostly because of the drama-queen administrators – like the idiot “patient advocate” at the DC hospital who I swear sounds and looks like a man, but overacts as well as any New Orleans whore on her way to jail) but it’s a damn-sight better than it has been before President Bush. The only way the DC hospital will get better is to fire those morons so deeply entrenched in their jobs that they’ll never fear being fired. But that’s true of any beaurocratic organization – especially on inside the Beltway.

WaPo also has a companion story about homeless veterans. But where the Hell were they just two months ago when the DC VA Medical Center flung their doors open to more than three hundred local homeless veterans for their annual Winterhaven event? Go ahead and “google” Winterhaven on Washington Post’s website – no results found. “Google” the word veterans and you get five pages of Walter Reed stories.

So where have you been, WaPo? If you had given a tiny rat’s ass before, you’d have something to compare current conditions with. But since you haven’t bothered before, your credibility (those few tattered shreds remaining) is shot to Hell.

Category: Media, Walter Reed