I am a very lazy blogger don’t have huge wads of free time so check out these links which (surprise) support the general narrative that I have sketched out since the Walter Reed scandal broke.
Start with Steve Benen for context and useful links.
Rep. Don Young (R-bridge to nowhere) C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) now claims that he knew all along but he was afraid to do anything about it. Get a load of his reasoning:
“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war.”
No doubt wounded troops lying in pools of their own urine appreciate Young’s concern for their morale.
John Aravosis has a telling catch – Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), former chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, wants to dismiss Walter Reed as political noise. Buyer is half right in the sense that the scandal probably have never happened if it wasn’t for cynical gamesmanship. A little over two years ago Buyer replaced Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as the panel chair after Republican leaders accused Smith of trying to spend too much money on medical care for the troops.
Fred Kaplan has more at Slate about how the administration’s total disinterest in doing the job right impacts every aspect of this war.