Political Distortions: Walter Reed

An excellent bit fromOpinionJournal.

Last week, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came forward to announce the speaker's perspective on the manifest problems at Walter Reed: "The American people spoke clearly in the November elections that they wanted accountability and oversight. Under the Republican Congress it has been almost nonexistent, and you can certainly see that with what occurred at Walter Reed." No, you cannot see that. Rep. John Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, added that "we should have known all this before."

But all this was known before, though not by Reps. Pelosi and Tierney.

On Feb. 17, 2005--two years ago--GOP Rep. Tom Davis and the government reform committee held a public hearing on the maltreatment of wounded soldiers. The hearing was the culmination of an investigation, begun in 2003, by the committee and the Government Accountability Office. Virtually everything of substance in that Washington Post story was described, in numbing detail, at that hearing two years ago. Two soldiers, Army Sgts. John Allen and Joseph Perez, appeared before the Davis hearing and described their tours through the same hell painted by the Post last month.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, described the problems at Walter Reed in words that should be inscribed on portals across every bridge leading into Washington: "Life every day in this system is like running in hip boots in a swamp." He called it a "bureaucratic morass."

The core of the problem has been the peacetime administrative system's difficulty in handling wounded or disabled soldiers from the reserves and National Guard. In the words of the system itself, they have "fallen off orders." Here's how that happens:

To enter treatment, a wounded reservist would ask to have his "active duty orders"--i.e., the order that called him up for Iraq or Afghanistan--extended for 90 days, what is called an active duty medical extension, or ADME. But some soldiers would fall off their active orders before the ADME came through. Others, often with complex injuries, would use up their three-month ADME and again fall off orders before receiving a renewal.

Sgt. First Class Allen told the Davis committee in laymen's terms what this means: "When my orders expire, it creates a multitude of problems for me and my family: no pay, no access to the base [such as Walter Reed], no medical coverage for my family and the cancellation of all my scheduled medical appointments."

Someone should make a movie called "National Lampoon's Federal Government." The dialogue would include this line from the GAO's Gregory Kutz describing the soldiers' problem: "overall, we found the current stove-piped, non-integrated order-writing, personnel, pay, and medical eligibility systems require extensive error-prone manual data entry and re-entry." That's right--"and re-entry."

Despite the public record, the committee's new Democratic chairman, Henry Waxman, has rebooted the focus of the "mice-and-mold" scandal, from the obviously dysfunctional government to "privatization" at Walter Reed. Maintenance at Walter Reed collapsed in 2005, when the BRAC base-closing commission, whatever the merits and with President Bush's approval, ill-advisedly listed Walter Reed, amid a major war. So of course the civilian workforce went looking for permanent work elsewhere.

The real point of the article is that the general (Maj. Gen. George Weightman, M.D.) that the just fired for this happens to be the guy that was put into the position 6 months ago to fix the whole mess. Too bad they didn't actually give him any time to complete anything. Especially for a military system that was on the base closure list. Anyone want to take a swipe as to why in the hell it was proposed for closure at all during a war?

Pelosi's blatant lies about the failure of oversight shouldn't be a surprise. She like all politicians want to assure the public that they are going to fix things that are already in the process of being fixed. And Gates and the Administration proceded to start their repairs with a flame thrower. Let's not bother to discuss what was happening or even point out that the facts of the case are far different from what the MSM has been telling the public.

Lastly, does anyone actually believe that the Big Government Dems will fix this? I'm betting on it just getting worse. Nothing like big government to make more red tape and make everything more difficult for those that need help.