March 05, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

KATRINA AND WALTER REED

There are so many scandals and such gross incompetence in the Bush administration you almost find yourself with outrage fatigue. But we should let the fire continue to build. We need to oust this filthy administration and remember all the lessons from the past six years. As Paul Krugman points out, the treatment of the wounded Iraq veterans at Walter Reed is very much like the way the administration treated the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This administration pinches pennies for people like you and me, but showers largesse on the rich and powerful. This column is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:

Yet even now it’s not clear whether the public will be told the full story, which is that the horrors of Walter Reed’s outpatient unit are no aberration. For all its cries of “support the troops,” the Bush administration has treated veterans’ medical care the same way it treats everything else: nickel-and-diming the needy, protecting the incompetent and privatizing everything it can.

What makes this a particular shame is that in the Clinton years, veterans’ health care — like the Federal Emergency Management Agency — became a shining example of how good leadership can revitalize a troubled government program. By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the V.H.A.)

But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has done all it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal is another Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration’s misgovernment became obvious to everyone.