“Baffled” Obama supporters in the veteran community
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Daily Beast in which folks who backed the two elections of Obama in the veteran community are “baffled why the Department of Veterans’ Affairs isn’t doing more for veterans;
“I supported President Obama in both elections, but what is happening right now at VA is inexcusable,” says Thomas Bandzul, a well-known advocate for veterans who is legislative counsel for Veterans and Military Families for Progress and past associate counsel for Veterans for Common Sense.
Bandzul, who in 2007 worked closely with then-Senator Obama on the Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act, said he is “baffled” by why the problems at the agency just keep getting worse and why Obama isn’t doing more to fix it.
“I know Shinseki on a personal level,” he says. “I know Allison Hickey on a personal level. They’re two of the greatest people in the world. But it’s time the president takes full responsibility for this failure, and takes action. This is happening on his watch.”
Yeah, we warned readers about Veteran and Military Families for Progress, and Veterans for Common Sense back in 2008 when we first noticed that they popped their grimy little heads up. All they cared about was getting veterans and the troops to vote for their candidate with total disregard of what would happen.
Oh, yeah, the article mentions other disillusioned veterans’ groups, but oddly enough, they don’t mention Paul Reickhoff and IAVA who are suddenly very good on the inability of the VA to do their simple job with any measure of success. But, IAVA drove hard for the hoop getting a Democrat Administration in office in 2008 & 2010. I wonder when they’re going to admit that they were wrong. At least VoteVets has been consistently pro-Obama, despite his utter failure on veterans’ issues. And, oh yeah, by the way, most of the writing staff from VoteVets now works at the VA. Well, except for a notable few who have jumped ship now that it’s sinking.
There was even some disagreement among the writing staff at TAH whether an Obama Administration would screw veterans. And yes, Obama has increased spending on veterans, as the VA folks reminded me incessantly at the Milblog Conference last year, but outcome is more important than intentions. In addition to the troubles at the VA , this month, thousands of veterans are being forcibly removed from the rolls of Tricare Prime for the more user-expensive Tricare Standard, while the surplus we’ve built up in Tricare is further squandered by the Department of Defense.
But, these veterans’ groups being “baffled” as to how all of this happened were more interested in getting their guy elected than they were in looking ahead at what the inevitable outcome would be. Cry me a fricken river.
Category: Veterans Issues, Veterans' Affairs Department
What bothers me most is that BUT FOR the VA paralysis, there are Veterans who voted for clowny not once but twice, and who would not otherwise mind his dangerous administration. I like to think they are all Navy and AF Vets but I know better.
@1 Aw HELLS naw….I didn’t vote for Fartbongo….
/23 years USAF/USAFR, 30% DAV
The sad thing is they would still pull the lever for Obama if given the chance.
It really has nothing much to do with partisan politics, there hasn’t been a real pro-veteran candidate since McCain, but with the way congress is nonfunctional these days the VA is going to keep taking hits along with everything else. At least some awareness has been made of late, both in solving some of the horrible problems they’ve had in the past decade and lately a push by the president’s office to fund an extra what, $50 million or so to hire more bureaucrats for backlogged VA claims. It may be little more than a feel-good PR spending move that certainly won’t fix the issue… but something is better than nothing.
Any group that supports ANY political candidate is effin worthless. If you’re a VSO, hold politician’s feet to the fire, regardless of policy.
As for IAVA, VCS, et al, to borrow the catchphrase, “You had ONE JOB!”
Well, the first time around, I figured he was making such a bodacious sale pitch that he couldn’t possible live up to it. I was right. The second time around, when he started talking about doing right by veterans, it was the same old baloney roll. No matter how you slice it, it was still baloney and I knew it, so I didn’t do the stupid and vote for him.
Well, I figure that with only ONE brain cell to rub together between the lot of them, NO WONDER they’re baffled.
policy = politics.
Effin Mondays.
Throwing money at the problem doesn’t make it go away.
Ssssshhhhh…Rob, don’t tell that to a liberal. You’d be wasting your time.
“And how we burned in the camps later…” ? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
just wait until those baffled buffoons see what happens when odumbo’s healthcare kicks in this year!
Remember in 2008 when he said on the campaign trail “The American people do not care how big the federal government is as long as it is efficient”. I just had a reevaluation of my rating and I was wondering why?? Why do my 5 year re-eval when there are so many back logged initial claims pending, wouldn’t it be more efficient to finish the initial claims and get them on the road to recovery than to do my reevaluation. My daughter, who works in the Comptroller’s Office, USMC Hq’s said, easier to do yours and do a down grade and save money and to also stall the initial claims, saves money all around. Richard Cranium’s all of them
Dave–and doesn’t it say a lot that YOU have to get re-evaluated every so often, but if you’re on the SS Disability sugar teat, you’re on it for life, and almost never challenged again regarding your “disability?”
They say, as if they was any indication at all that he had the most miniscule amount of respect for anything military, American in general, or the US Constitution prior to running for office. Their support was based only upon their wishful thinking.
Whatever.
Why would anyone think that a man like Obama with absolutely no managerial or executive experience (or any other relevant work experience) whatsoever would be effective as POTUS? Especially the second time around when he had already proven that the job was many, many, many paygrades above him?
My son was in AF tech school during the run up to the last election, he came home a few days afterward. He was appalled at the lack of interest among his classmates. They didn’t care about politics, current events, or the economy, only about their own interests – biking, video games, drinking, and girls. These guys ranged in age from 18 to 26 so not all were kids straight out of high school, although that shouldn’t be an excuse. He would try to have conversations and debates with them and they would ridicule him for his concern. Almost none of them voted, which is good I guess, because you shouldn’t vote if you don’t know what you’re voting for.
The base commander had the DFAC TVs changes to CNN and Fox News instead of ESPN and you would think the world came to an end. He thought that members of the military should know what’s going on in the world.
In a perfect world, agencies like the VA would be run by effective managers with reams of experience, not political appointees.
ALL I can make my self say to any and all Vets that voted for B. Hussein 0bama is this: Well,*DUUUUHHHHH!*.
Well, hell. I too “know Shinseki on a personal level”. One of the “Greatest people”, he isn’t. All the praise he gets from sycophants is shown up for what it is, hype, because he’s not been all that effective at his primary statutory mission of taking care of vets.
I just went in yesterday to speak with my VSO. He told me that the average wait time for vets, according to the DVA, was 13 months. I’m up to 16 months now and haven’t even been scheduled for a appointment to see how screwed up I am. Hell, I just had to send in the orders from my deployment because my 214 was so screwed up… by Veteran Affairs.