Obama Skips Golf To Visit Overseas Contingency Operation For Photo-Op

On the eve of Memorial Day, The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, who is down in the polls, decided to head over to Bagram Air Base to thank the troops there.

This was Obama's fourth visit to Afghanistan as president, but his first since winning re-election in 2012.

Good on him for going but…

Call me cynical. This is about the Veterans Administration scandal and crisis management on Memorial Day weekend.

One of the five rules of crisis management for leftists is to use the media and politics.  So what we have here, in a nutshell, is a photo-op to prove he cares about our troops followed by a visit to Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns followed by a commencement speech at West Point later this week.  No sir, there’s no political strategy at work here.

I noticed one curious thing while reading the reports of this “secret visit”.  Ben Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, said in a CBS report that “the administration had been trying to plan a trip to thank the troops for some time, and the timing was good. The president did not meet with Karzai or candidates in order to avoid injecting America's presence into the ongoing election.” [Emphasis mine]

I say curious because, as we all know, the 2014 mid-terms are a mere five months off and the VA scandal stories keep coming.

Meanwhile CNN's John King, host of Inside Politics, sheepishly conceded:

"Forget for a moment that Republican outrage.  More and more Democrats in key 2014 races are calling for the president to get a spine, they say, and fire his Veterans Affairs secretary. And what more and more Democrats are saying privately is scathing, calling the president and his team detached, flat footed, even incompetent.”

Noted media lapdog, Maggie Haberman further expounded, "That’s what strikes me, what Democrats are saying privately in the wake of the healthcare (dot) gov problems, they see a president who doesn't want to take command, doesn't want to act fast. Raising the competence question. Some Democrats, who believe in government, [are saying] this White House doesn't appear to have its hand on the lever.  All of this adds up to somebody who just doesn't seem at all involved."

Egads Mags, ya think?  Somebody call Captain Obvious.

Didn’t we recently learn “that the world seems to disappoint him?”

Obama Wants A Report. Sanders Wants A Report. Meanwhile, Veterans Must Wait For Accountability.

Ben Jacobs, writing for The Daily Beast snidely opined that “lefty groups are signing petitions urging” the socialist senator “to register and throw his hat in the (presidential) ring, the problem is that there is nothing bearing the slightest resemblance to a path to victory” for him in Iowa, a state where presumed front-runner Hillary Clinton is weakest and which has traditionally proved receptive to liberal candidates. 

Who cares?  Consider this—by and large this doddering old fool is relatively unknown—he needs to show his political chops.  So…

Parroting The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, the socialist Vermonter is waiting to see facts from the ongoing investigation of the burgeoning VA scandal.

On Thursday, Sanders blocked a move by Sen. Marco Rubio to pass a bill that would make it easier for the VA secretary to fire senior executives. The House passed its measure on Wednesday, over Shinseki’s objections with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 390 to 33.  All of the “no” votes came from Democrats.

Harry Reid and Bernie Sanders were immediately confronted with the stark choice of standing with veterans who rely on the VA health care system or standing alongside poorly performing bureaucrats entrenched in a dysfunctional personnel system.

Sanders said he felt that any legislative fix should not get a vote without a hearing and he sought Rubio’s support for a more comprehensive bill.

That stunt incensed Rubio who said, “He said we may one day pass it, it’s a really good idea, but he wants to have a hearing on it first. And I just don’t understand that.  They blocked it. And unfortunately members of Congress will head home for Memorial Day and veterans will keep waiting for accountability, and that’s outrageous.”

“We could have sent this bill to the president, and next week when the preliminary investigation returns Shinseki could have started firing people that weren’t doing their jobs,” said Rubio.

By closing ranks with TWMDCO, Senate Democrats are playing a treacherous game of politics with the lives of veterans.  Political power is their craven desire.

UPDATE:  Linked by The Pirate’s Cove and we thank him.

All I Know Is What I Read In The Papers

His coal mine canaries are ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and MSNBC.  When they start covering a scandal then he’s compelled to come forward. 

Every damned time The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer is confronted with a scandal his modus operandi is to feign outrage, blame George Bush and/or the Republicans.

For good measure he tosses in a milquetoast threat implying he will not tolerate it and will make sure that “we find out exactly what happened on this” and then…buries it.

TWMDCO addressed the issue of long wait times and secret waiting lists at VA hospital facilities for the first time in three weeks Wednesday, but did so insufficiently given the scope of the problem.

According to the latest reports, 26 VA facilities nationwide are now being investigated for preventable deaths due to delays in treatment.

In 2007 in Kansas City, Missouri TWMDCO, vowed to tackle the issue of insufficient care for veterans at a campaign event during his first run for the presidency in a speech entitled “A Sacred Trust”.

“When a veteran is denied care, we are all dishonored.  It’s not enough to lay a wreath on Memorial Day, or to pay tribute to our veterans in speeches.”

A CNN report says that three senior VA officials identified as Dr. Thomas Lynch, Assistant Undersecretary for Health and Clinical Operations; Joan Mooney, Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Michael Huff, a Congressional Relations Officer failed to appear before the House Health Care and Wellness Committee citing that the committee did not provide enough notice.

Rep. Jeff Miller, committee chairman said, “My intent is to go ahead and subpoena them for a hearing” before his on committee on May 30th.

It is unquestionably Socratic irony that we observe Memorial Day this weekend.

As our attention is directed to those 624 fenced acres of Arlington National Cemetery where more than 320,000 heroes are interred we are called upon to remember that the soil there is watered by the silent tears of the mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters they left behind and a triangular folded American flag that is all that remains for them to hold.