The Patriot Post® · VA Secretary Throws Vets Under the Bus

The sight of veterans awaiting medical care is commensurate with park goers waiting in line to hit up Disneyland, according to Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald, and thus they should expect the same kind of treatment.

According to the Washington Examiner, during a Christian Science Monitor event, McDonald said, “When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience? And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure.”

Taking to Twitter, enraged House Speaker Paul Ryan responded, “This is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those lines.” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen isn’t the only one who needs to be impeached.

The Washington Examiner editorial board responds, “Instead of mending the agency, McDonald has adopted the cavalier disregard of veterans that he was hired to end. He has become the lead excuse-maker for an uncaring and self-serving bureaucracy. … McDonald was, of course, flat wrong even in suggesting that Disney isn’t concerned about wait times. But that’s hardly the point. Imagine asking Bernie Madoff’s victims whether they felt satisfied he’d done a good job — you know, aside from all that money they lost. To do a good job at the Veterans Administration means actually to provide an empirically-measured and appropriate level of services owed to the country’s war-fighters. There is no alternative ‘measure’ of satisfaction by which to gauge the experience of veterans who die while waiting in line. And veterans, who put their lives on the line for their country and in many cases received grievous wounds, are not remotely comparable to pleasure-seeking holidaymakers.”