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White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wound up with egg on his face Monday as he told reporters that President Barack Obama first learned from a TV news report that his Veterans Administration was denying medical care to vets with secret off-the-books-waiting lists.
But new evidence emerged this morning that his transition team was notified five years ago about how VA medical centers' official wait-list times bore little resemblance to reality and risked denying military heroes critical health care.
The Washington Times reported Monday that waiting times at veterans' medical facilities were known to be wildly inaccurate at the end of the George W. Bush administration. By the time Obama's transition team got a post-election briefing from the VA at the end of 2008, scheduling failures were already reaching a critical point.
The newspaper received a copy of that briefing through a Freedom Of Information Act request.
Obama has come under fire before for saying he was made aware of scandal-worthy shortcomings in his own administration by watching television, including the IRS tea party-targeting scandal that rocked Washington 12 months ago and the Operation Fast and Furious saga that has tainted his Justice Department for years.
A CNN reporter asked Carney on Monday when the president was 'first made aware ... of these fraudulent lists that were being kept to hide the wait times' at VA medical centers.
'You mean the specific allegations,' Carney asked, 'that I think were reported first by your news network out of Phoenix, I believe?'
'We learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken.'
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Maybe the country could save money by letting all of Obama's cabinet and advisors go and just buying him a subscription to the NYT and Directv?
But new evidence emerged this morning that his transition team was notified five years ago about how VA medical centers' official wait-list times bore little resemblance to reality and risked denying military heroes critical health care.
The Washington Times reported Monday that waiting times at veterans' medical facilities were known to be wildly inaccurate at the end of the George W. Bush administration. By the time Obama's transition team got a post-election briefing from the VA at the end of 2008, scheduling failures were already reaching a critical point.
The newspaper received a copy of that briefing through a Freedom Of Information Act request.
Obama has come under fire before for saying he was made aware of scandal-worthy shortcomings in his own administration by watching television, including the IRS tea party-targeting scandal that rocked Washington 12 months ago and the Operation Fast and Furious saga that has tainted his Justice Department for years.
A CNN reporter asked Carney on Monday when the president was 'first made aware ... of these fraudulent lists that were being kept to hide the wait times' at VA medical centers.
'You mean the specific allegations,' Carney asked, 'that I think were reported first by your news network out of Phoenix, I believe?'
'We learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken.'
More at Link
Maybe the country could save money by letting all of Obama's cabinet and advisors go and just buying him a subscription to the NYT and Directv?
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