https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Jboy-VC7tk
While the Obama administration has largely been able to fend off criticism from many of its looming controversies, it won’t be able to do the same with the mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs given the wide scope and various reports and anecdotes of the problem, Charles Krauthammer said on Friday’s Special Report.
In the past, the White House used the “stonewall playbook” of refraining from commenting on scandals by pointing to an ongoing investigations, in which there was largely no other source of outside information and allowed the administration to more feasibly control the narrative. In regards to the VA scandal though, Krauthammer explained that with more and more victims and their families coming forward every day and revealing various examples of malpractice at facilities and hospitals, it makes the situation more difficult for the White House to manage public perception.
“To say, ‘We can’t know what happened unless there’s investigation or until it comes in,’ is simply untenable,” he said. “I don’t think they understand that — it’s rather simple — and in the end it’s going to be absolutely a position they’re going to have to cave on, and [Secretary Eric] Shinseki is going to have to go.”