The recent news stories concerning mismanagement in the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has already claimed the Department's Secretary, Eric Shinseki, as a political casualty, have elicited a predictably two-faced response from Republican lawmakers and the conservative chattering classes. The former have expressed well-manicured "outrage," with a call for investigations that will run from now to Election Day (conveniently), while the latter have reacted with the sort of glee normally seen in children on Christmas morning. This glee takes a number of ugly forms; personally, I find this one to be the most repugnant. (If there's any "gift from God" here, it's Dr. Carson himself; he proves that even a great hospital like Johns Hopkins can make mistakes).
That there was mismanagement at VA is beyond doubt. But there are two aspects of that mismanagement that form the heart of the true "scandal" here. First VA has been mismanaged for decades, in no small part because we as a nation have never made the commitment that any nation should always make to those who put their lives on the line for it. That's why, from a purely political perspective, turning VA's problems into a political club against Obama is not only dishonest, it is also deeply hypocritical--in light of the fact that, when it comes to budget cutting, VA is one of congressional Republicans' favorite spots to visit.
Contrasted to the money they spent looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction, this is a disgrace. But make no mistake: at the present time, it is a Republican disgrace. They sadly give new meaning to the old quote, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute". They could, of course, easily cut overall spending AND free up funds for VA. But that would upset too many defense contractors--the ones that help pay the Republicans' political bills. And it wouldn't play well into the basic Republican political strategy: micromanage Obama's responsibility to execute the laws, while not giving him the money to carry it out.
And the rest of the scandal? Well, I can illustrate that simply by referring back to the "wisdom" of the good Dr. Carson. What Christian--for that matter, what person of any faith or simple decency--would treat a tragedy such as this as a "gift from God"? Not someone who believes in God as being something other, or more, than a tribune for the GOP and conservatism. Not someone who follows the Jesus of the New Testament, who built His ministry around those who suffered the most for the least reason. Not someone who follows the Old Testament injunctions to look after the poor and needy amongst us.
Dr. Carson doesn't have the political instincts or, I suspect, the common sense to realize what he's done with his deeply offensive observation. He's exposed modern conservatism as standing for nothing bigger than itself, and its ability to control everything outside of it. It is why conservatism has, over the past several decades, disintegrated in this country from an honorable desire to not throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water to an almost onanistic worship to dominate everything. To rule, rather than to govern.
Sadly, until conservatism changes, and until the Republicans thereafter understand that there is no walking away from spending whatever it takes to care for those who gave whatever we asked, VA will never be able to function the way it should. The harm our veterans suffer in the process is terrible. The fate of our nation as a result may be even worse. The world may yet find that that the ultimate "gift from God" here is the end of the United States--one more dead empire that failed to stop the rot from within.
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