Sarah Palin had a new opportunity to show off her famous foreign-policy mojo tonight when she appeared on the Hannity show and lectured President Obama about the things he doesn’t understand about our military and doesn’t love enough about America. From the woman who never seems to open her mouth in public without spewing hate about our country.
It was a special Hannity show at the Republican Leadership Conference. In other words, it was an all-Republican show by Republicans for Republicans.
Sean Hannity began the interview by discussing the VA scandal and the Obama administration's response. “Do you feel there’s a lack of urgency?” Hannity asked. As if Palin’s sentiment were in doubt.
Still, she not only affirmed his suggestion but added to it:
I think there’s a lack of understanding on our commander in chief’s part of what the mission of the military is and why it is that we owe a debt of gratitude that’s manifested in benefits paid to those who’ve already earned them when it comes to what our military is all about. And you know that was really evident in his speech the other day to the cadets at west point. Weak speech where truly it was illustrated by his words that he just doesn’t understand why our young troops, especially those who would volunteer to sacrifice all for the freedoms in this country.
… He not being a believer in American exceptionalism and what it takes to remain a superpower… to actually be that shining light, that beacon upon a hill that other countries can look at and count on to be an example, they wishing to emulate it.
Right. Because all those other countries look at us and wish that Palin were vice president right now.
But Hannity had some more hate mongering fun in mind. “Somebody I know mentioned death panels. Is the VA a death panel for many?”
Again, as if he didn’t know what Palin would say. But he used it to whip up his crowd. “How many think it’s a death panel for the VA?” This is not something Hannity just thought of but a right-wing trope seized upon as part of its effort to use the VA scandal to discredit the Affordable Care Act.
Sure enough, Palin agreed that the VA is little more than a death panel. “That is what government-run healthcare will result in,” she sniped gleefully. Then she and Hannity declared that “illegal aliens” and prisoners at Guantanamo Bay get better care than our vets.
But there’s one thing these two “patriots” seem to have missed. The VA is extremely popular with veterans.
But what would they know compared to these two experts?
Palin can talk about her strong feelings for the military all day, but that will not improve the VA one bit. If we owe our vets anything, then we certainly owe them the funds to take care of their health, like we promised!
However, on the issue of the VA’s outrageous and growing scandal, it’s hard not to disagree with the overall right wing sentiment that major changes need to happen overnight, including the immediate dismissal of Eric Shinseki.
Now, I know this comment will bring on condemnation from the PC patrol on Newshounds who will claim that I’m no liberal, and maybe even a paid troll for FNC (gasp!).
Sure!
What I am is an aging veteran who gets his medical care from the VA. I think that qualifies me to comment. For the record, I get my care at the large VA hospital in Manhattan that benefits from also being one of the NYU med school teaching facilities (as are the other VA sites in the city). It seems that many of the major problems being revealed every day are at locations that might be relying mostly, if not solely, on paid medical staff. There’s a good article on that, in Thursday’s NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/us/doctor-shortages-cited-in-va-hospital-waits.html?hp
Here in Manhattan, the place is overrun with NYU residents learning their skills. This is beneficial (the best primary I had, out of four total in ten years, was a resident who, like all of them, had to move on) as well as the cause of other problems (some of which I’ve experienced, and won’t bore anyone with here).
And also for the record, I felt from almost the time Obama first appointed him that Shinseki was the wrong leader for the VA (not that previous VA secretaries inspired confidence). Nothing I ever heard or read about Shinseki ever convinced me he was really interested in the job.
It seems inevitable now that Shinseki will go, maybe as soon as today (Friday). But why Obama has dragged his feet on this baffles me (though I read somewhere that his style is let problems play out, then make changes, e.g., Sebelius). One could also ask why Obama seems determined to make Afghanistan HIS war when we should have been totally out of there years ago!!
Of course in true Hannity style, he’s using this to smear and besmirch (two of Hannocchio’s fav words) the President with the assistance of his “expert” of the moment, this being Palin’s turn. The right wing grudgingly acknowledges that the VA’s problems started before Obama, though they say he’s had more than enough time to fix it, and I have to agree there also.
The truth is that presidential blame can probably go back to Clinton. Total lack of planning left the VA woefully unprepared to deal with predictable and unknown future developments.
One was the obvious fact that thousands of ‘Nam vets (including me) might start needing medical care in their 60s and 70s. What wasn’t anticipated was the near financial depression (Bush’s doing) that would leave thousands of these older vets without the means to pay for their healthcare and drive them to the VA (I did have my own HMO plan at one time).
Add to all of this Bush’s wars. Remember those wars, Slanthead? The wars that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et. al. lied through their teeth to get us into? The conflicts that warmongers like YOU, HANNITY, LIED AND LIED AND LIED about to sell this folly to the American people?
Did you know, Slanthead, that battlefield medicine had advanced so much that instead of thousands dying where they fell (Vietnam), in Iraq and Afghanistan they could be kept alive, albeit with missing limbs, damaged brains, etc., and they would overwhelm the active (that’s Walter Reed, where you claim to have visited — liar) hospitals and the VA for inactive veterans?
And if anyone thinks Hannocchio will cease being a slimy warmonger, think again. How many countries would he invade tomorrow, how many MIRV missiles would he launch if his finger were on the button? Hannity is worse than even McCain (Timothy Egan’s column in Friday’s NYT, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/opinion/egan-the-wars-not-fought.htm, is worth reading).
Will Slanthead ever stop claiming to appreciate America’s men in uniform? Do you know what he said on the radio last Tuesday (back from his Memorial Day vacation)? So many vets died for our freedoms, he announced, to allow us “to have Memorial Day barbeques!” And then this shithead tells us about the big steak he barbequed last Monday. Why is it always about the food with Hannity? Always about stuffing his face?
Does Slanthead Hannity have even the faintest notion of how Decoration Day started? Does anyone here think he ever in his pitiful life visited graves of war dead to place flowers?
BTW, Ellen, wasn’t Phil Robertson supposed to be on this panel with Palin? Hannocchio was touting that on the radio today, plus an exclusive teevee interview with his guru on both homosexual behavior and wanton slaughter of wildlife (isn’t he a perfect soul mate for Palin? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/27/sarah-palin-phil-robertson_n_4507969.html)
As far as “weak speeches,” I guess she’d know since she’s the Queen of Weak Speeches.
