Mad as hell, huh? Obama's transition team was warned about VA wait times in 2008

I won't bother to rehash the fact that President Obama's seemingly constant anger at his own staff serves as proof that he's a terrible President. Dan has a nice piece on that, which you can read here. However, I am interested in the idea that - asThe New York Times reports- Obama claims to be investigating the Veteran's Administration to find out if lethal wait times are a"series of isolated cases or whether this is a systemic issue that we need to address with wholesale reform."

The fact is that he shouldn't have to ask this question. The White House has known about itfor five years. FromThe Washington Times:

The Obama administration received clear notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care -- problems that have turned into a growing scandal.

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Veterans Affairs officials warned the Obama-Biden transition team in the weeks after the 2008 presidential election that the department shouldn’t trust the wait times that its facilities were reporting. "This is not only a data integrity issue in which [Veterans Health Administration] reports unreliable performance data; it affects quality of care by delaying -- and potentially denying -- deserving veterans timely care," the officials wrote.

Now, before any lefties start whining about how I'm not attacking George W. Bush for his failures on this matter, let's just be clear that I am. Obviously, if Obama's transition team was warned of the problem, it existed under the previous administration. It's a safe bet that they knew about it and it appears very likely that they were ignoring it. In fact, we've been hearing VA horror stories for decades. It wouldn't be at all surprising to learn that every administration - going all the way back to Nixon and Carter - was aware that some version of this issue existed. No one should care what party or President we're talking about. If it's proven that members of previous administrations allowed this problem to continue, they should absolutely be held accountable. However, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, "you go to war with the administration you have, not the ones you wish you had." The "administration we have" knew about this problem - for years - and didnothing. During that same time, the VA had no problem spending gobs of cash on various other oh-so-pressing matters.IJreviewdug through theUSSpending.gov websiteand found that, under Obama, the VA has been busy buying pretty much whatever it wanted...

• $489,000,000 to improvemeeting rooms, buy draperies, and purchase furniture during the past four-and-a-half years

• $10,700,00 on draperies

• $6,800,000 for a remodeling project in Illinois.

• $1,700,000 for a new filing system in California.

Those in need were placed on secret wait lists where they languished for months - in as many as 40 cases (probably more) this was a de facto death sentence. Yet the VA could spend almost half a billion dollars on furniture and upgrades? Disturbingly, all of this happened while Team Obama was busy trying to "reform" the rest of the nation's health care system. ...and they were warned about the problem from day one. I suppose this is the part where desperate progs inform us that this is a "phony scandal."