Obama: ‘I Always Take Responsibility,’ but VA Scandal Started with Bush

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Frances Martel:

President Obama announced the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki Friday, vowing to take full responsibility for the increasingly widespread scandal engulfing the VA’s health services. Within seconds of taking responsibility, however, the President made sure to assert that the problems “predate my presidency.”

“This predates my presidency. When I was in the Senate, I was on the Veterans Affairs Committee. I heard first-hand veterans who were not getting the kinds of services and benefits that they had earned,” the President said to the White House Press Corps this afternoon. The assertion that the VA scandal was an ongoing cultural problem within the institution followed declaration that he would “always take responsibility for whatever happens,” particularly with regard to Veterans Affairs.

In the same announcement, President Obama noted that it was “with considerable regret” that he accepted Secretary Shinseki’s resignation. He took the time to commend Shinseki’s work within the agency. “Under his leadership, we have seen more progress on more fronts at the VA and a bigger investment in the VA than just about any other VA secretary,” the President asserted, adding that “Ric’s commitment to our veterans is unquestioned. His service to our country is exemplary.” Shinseki himself, he said, had begun the process of mass firings in agencies with considerable problems throughout the country.

President Obama emphasized the Shinseki’s resignation did not have to do with his ability to run the organization, but his potential to become “a distraction,” blaming “Congress and you guys [the media]” for the situation in which Shinseki, who oversaw the agency as the scandal developed, cannot keep his job. 

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The Washington Post describes the fabrications as “elaborate schemes to hide long waiting times date back as far as 2010.”

Can someone please refresh my memory and tell me who President Bush had as his VA Secretary in 2010?

@another vet
This is what happens when you rely on newspapers to know what’s going on. 🙂

With regard to Obama blaming Congress and media, leading Shinseki to find himself over his head, that’s on Shinseki himself. He made the mess that is the VA worst. Moreover, Obama shoulders much of the blame. He thinks throwing more money at a problem somehow fixes it. Just watch, he’ll throw even more money at the VA. And, we can predict that outcome as well – an even bigger VA mess than now.

@David: Surely you aren’t accusing the media of historical revisionism. The left would never do such a thing.

With regards to Shinseki throwing money out there, he advocated the same thing with Iraq only with troop levels. He asserted we needed over 200,000 troops there which would have been a waste of resources and unsustainable given the troop cuts that occurred under Clinton. Petreaus got the job done with far fewer troops because he had a plan and addressed the issues as opposed to just advocating throwing troops out there. I’m not berating Shinseki’s service to the country, but I do question his judgement and level of competence.

I talked to one of my buddies last night who retired with 80% service connected disability (he was SF most of his 27 years with multiple tours to Afghanistan and one to Iraq). It’s been 13 months and he has still not been assigned a primary care physician nor has he been given any type of doctor’s appointment. It took them 9 months just to send his first disability check. I’ve experienced similar issues myself since there was a changing of the guard in 2009. The wait times the VA has spewed out are still on the low side for many.

@David: Not newspapers, ESPN!

Obama: ‘I Always Take Responsibility,’ but…..
Always?
ALWAYS????
How about never.
Despite the deaths because of VA unionistas dragging the whole organization down to their low level of productivity, I imagine Obama is happy to see this on so many front pages.
Benghazi is off the front page.
IRS targeting scandal is off the front page.
Hillary’s health and age is off the front page.
The crappy economic numbers (minus one percent last quarter) are off the front page.
That ObamaCare is paying off insurers so they don’t raise rates too much THIS year is off the front page.
Obama’s staging of heavy military weaponry all over the country is off the front page.
Obama’s densification/forced housing for all is off the front page.
Obama’s destruction of our domestic electric energy production is off the front page.
Keystone is off the front page.

I could go on but you get the point: Obama is a good student of Rahm, ”never let a crisis go to waste,” Emmanuel.

Obama ought to title his Presidential memoirs, “But Bush!”

There are not sufficient words to express the disgusting, contemptible nature of this buffoonish, incompetent worm currently befouling the oval office.

He used tbe VA as a campaign prop prior to his election in 2008. Hiring another incompetent political “yes man” general then ignoring the true problems in the VA for over 5 years has been the modus operandum of this despicable administration. Blaming someone who has not been president for over 5 years for not fixing the problems Obama knew about based on his campaign speeches pre-Nov 2008 is the behavior of a 5 year old found holding pieces of a broken lamp whose reply to the question, “Who broke it?” vociferously says, “Not me!”

Cute. If Obama is truly so horrible, one has to wonder why the Right continuously resorts to outright ridiculous distortions of the truth on a regular basis in an attempt to prove that point. I listened to this press conference live. Guess what, the line in question was a reference to his interest in the issue predating his Presidency, not the problem itself. It’s not hard to find the transcript. What do you think “Frances Martel” makes of you, his audience, considering how transparently ridiculous this claim is… and that you all fell for it? Just thought you should know. Some people don’t like being made fools of. My apologies to those who do.

http://www.stripes.com/news/text-of-president-obama-s-news-conference-may-30-2014-1.286228

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I will leave it up to the Justice Department to make determinations in terms of whether there’s been criminal wrongdoing. In terms of responsibility, as I’ve said before, this is my administration; I always take responsibility for whatever happens. And this is an area that I have a particular concern with. This predates my presidency. When I was in the Senate, I was on the Veterans Affairs Committee. I heard firsthand veterans who were not getting the kinds of services and benefits that they had earned. And I pledged that if I had the privilege of serving as Commander-in-Chief and President, that we would fix it.

@Tom:

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I will leave it up to the Justice Department to make determinations in terms of whether there’s been criminal wrongdoing.

In other words, I am not going to order my Attorney General to investigate any criminal wrongdoing, I’m just going to leave it up to Eric Holder. I’m only the President, after all.

In terms of responsibility, as I’ve said before, this is my administration; I always take responsibility for whatever happens.

Wait, who wrote this. Let me rephrase that.

And this is an area that I have a particular concern with. This predates my presidency.

So see, it really isn’t my fault so I am really not going to take responsibility for this mess.

When I was in the Senate, I was on the Veterans Affairs Committee.

I guess I should have attended those meetings more than once.

I heard firsthand veterans who were not getting the kinds of services and benefits that they had earned.

Yeah, but you can guess when I heard that veterans were getting the shaft.

And I pledged that if I had the privilege of serving as Commander-in-Chief and President, that we would fix it.

But you can’t rush into these things. Five and a half years really isn’t a lot of time to work on veteran’s affairs when there are so many beautiful days to play golf. And besides, did you fools really expect me to keep any of my campaign promises? Well, the joke’s on you lemmings. I’m term limited.

@Tom:

The ridiculous distortions of the truth are leftists’ stock in trade. You post an Obama quote wherein he admits he KNEW about the problems before his presidency, yet did nothing about it (but throw money to the bureaucracy that was the problem) for over 5 years.

Something tells me that if such egregious bureaucratic acts had occured with regard to the health of the terrorists at Guantanamo, rather than to veterans, the response from the Obama administration would be much more vigorous.

@Pete:

A person who cares at all about the objective truth would likely be upset at the author of the post after being hoodwinked, but Pete turns his anger on me, while side-stepping the issue at hand (whether Obama blamed Bush – now settled) and blathers about something else entirely. I can’t say I’m surprised. Hyper-partisans typically only care about truth if it’s not inconvenient to their hard-wired world view.

@Tom:

Hyper-partisans typically only care about truth if it’s not inconvenient to their hard-wired world view.

Obviously, you wrote that while looking in the mirror.

@Tom:

Guess what, the line in question was a reference to his interest in the issue predating his Presidency, not the problem itself.

Yes. His interest in the issue does predate his Presidency, back to 2007 when he was But-Bushing over existing VA issues, even though the President first learned about the problems in the VA in 2014 through the media like the rest of us, apparently.

@Tom:

Hyper-partisans typically only care about truth if it’s not inconvenient to their hard-wired world view.

This more accurately describes the Collective.

This is the only comment a narcissist can make. The man is sick.

@Tom:

You claim I am side stepping the issue? Laughable.

You quoted Obama saying “this predated my presidency” and you further ignore his comments pre-2008 election with his subsequent failure after over 5 years to fix a problem he knew about. How does Obama’s “predated” comment not blame Bush as an excuse for his own failure to fix the problem?

And you call me hyperpartisan? LOL

@Kraken:

This more accurately describes the Collective.

Oh, “the Collective”. The Collective? But why the Collective? Let me follow your link to you and allow you to explain, or, perhaps if we’re lucky, allow us to divine the curious motivations behind this childish moniker marking your contempt for all those people who made you so miserable in days gone by. Here’s a clue. You mention at great length the unique challenges of your college years. How surprising. Was it before Junior or Senior year that you read “Atlas Shrugged” and found a whole new vocabulary for your contempt? The drones. They never appreciated the bow tie, or the pipe, or being cornered at parties for an exegesis on The Bell Curve, or a drunken lecture on Objectivism. They never got you, never knew how cleverly you’d mock them online years later as “The Collective”. And you don’t let anyone forget about it. The Collective. Impossibly apt, yet perfectly droll. Pat yourself on the back again, you deserve it. You showed them all. Ayn would be so proud.

@Pete:

How does Obama’s “predated” comment not blame Bush as an excuse for his own failure to fix the problem?

You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. Read the transcript again, including the sentence that the right wing blogosphere leaves out. The “predated” comment isn’t in reference to the problems at the VA. Are you always this confused by simple English sentences?

@Tom:

I do not appear to be the one with the reading comprehension problem.

The quote you posted – right after what you emboldened – shows Obama speaking about his being a member of the senate committee dealing with (wait for it) VETERANS AFFAIRS.