text: Finally, an authentic scandal: incompetence and deception at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Given what we know so far, more heads need to roll — and a criminal investigation should be launched. 
   
   Republicans have accused the Obama administration of so many faux scandals that it’s hard to recognize the real thing. Yes, the Internal Revenue Service seems to have given extra scrutiny to conservative organizations, but it gave extra scrutiny to liberal groups, too. Yes, Operation “Fast and Furious” was a mistake, but it wasn’t some kind of sinister plot. No, it doesn’t matter whether the evil people who took four American lives in Benghazi , Libya, are called terrorists, militants or simply killers. 
   
   Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section. View Archive 
   
   The VA situation, however, looks more serious day by day. If VA hospitals really are falsifying records to disguise lengthy waiting times — and if veterans are dying as a consequence — then President Obama needs to bring in new management to fix the problems and fast. 
   
   White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, speaking Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” described Obama as “madder than hell” about the VA scandal. By now, we should all be used to the fact that Obama is never what you would call demonstrative with his anger, at least publicly. No frothing, no foaming, no gnashing of teeth. I take McDonough at his word that the president is royally steamed. 
   
   We also should be used to the fact that Obama is extremely loyal to the members of his team. Despite the disastrous launch of the HealthCare.gov Web site, the president declined to dismiss Kathleen Sebelius as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, allowing her eventually to leave on her own terms. 
   
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   I don’t see how he can take a similar path, however, with Gen. Eric K. Shinseki at the VA. Sebelius at least made it clear that she understood the magnitude of the problem her department faced. Shinseki thus far has failed to telegraph comprehension, much less inspire confidence. 
   
   “Any allegation, any adverse incident like this makes me mad as hell,” Shinseki told the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee last week. I doubt there has ever been a four-star general who didn’t know how to get angry, but Shinseki’s ire had to be drawn out of him. If he was seething inside, he hid it well. 
   
   Perhaps that’s unfair; perhaps he should be evaluated only on his performance at work, not on whether he emotes before the television cameras. “This is not a job,” he said at the hearing. “I’m here to accomplish a mission I think [veterans] critically deserve and need, and I can tell you over the past five years we’ve done a lot to make things better.” 
   
   The all-too-obvious rejoinder is: Not enough. 
   
   The allegation that VA officials in Phoenix cooked the books to cover up the fact that veterans had to suffer unacceptably long waiting times before they received care — and that 40 veterans died while enduring such delays — is shocking in isolation. But if reports are true that there may have been similar practices in Albuquerque and perhaps in other cities, the problems begin to look systemic. 
   
   Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said there is “solid evidence” of “a pattern, apparently, of manipulating lists, gaming the system . . . which is not just an impropriety or misconduct, it is potentially a criminal act.” 
   
   The VA’s Office of Inspector General is on the case, Shinseki told senators. But I agree with Blumenthal’s assessment that it’s time to bring in some outside help, such as the FBI, and that the investigation needs to ascertain not just whether rules were broken but whether crimes were committed. 
   
   Shinseki inherited an agency ill-equipped to cope with the tsunamis that were about to overwhelm it: the return of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and the rapidly growing medical needs of Vietnam veterans now entering their later years. 
   
   It is important to keep the VA scandal in context. Conservatives who crow that this shows government cannot competently provide health care are wrong. VA hospitals see more than 200,000 veterans a day and rank among the highest in the nation in customer satisfaction, according to surveys. 
   
   At issue is how long veterans have to wait before they can receive that care — and whether employees are lying about those waiting times, with the result that people are dying. 
   
   The solemn promises we make to our veterans cannot be broken. There’s no need for histrionics from President Obama. But he does need to clean house. 
   
   Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A. ||||| VA Scandal 
   
   Democrats can dismiss Benghazi and the IRS as pseudo-scandals, maybe, but 40 veterans have died, and where has Obama been? Totally absent. 
   
   Up to now, President Obama and congressional Democrats had thought “so-called” scandals involving Benghazi, the IRS, and Operation Fast and Furious were largely behind them. Nothing to see, just Republican witch hunts designed to embarrass the president and perhaps land blows against Hillary Clinton. But recent revelations about shoddy care at Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities across the country have brought bipartisan condemnation from Capitol Hill that should worry a commander in chief whose reaction to the brewing tempest has been muted at best. 
   
   What is most surprising about the present controversy surrounding the substandard treatment at the VA, in which at least 40 veterans lost their lives while awaiting treatment, is that House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-FL) had alerted the president to trouble nearly a year ago. In a letter dated May 21, 2013, Miller began: 
   
   Dear Mr. President: I am writing to bring to your attention an alarming pattern of serious and significant patient care issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the country. Recent events at the Atlanta, Georgia, VAMC provide a perfect illustration of the management failures, deceptions, and lack of accountability permeating VA’s healthcare system…I believe your direct involvement and leadership is required. 
   
   A year on from Chairman Miller’s letter, the revelations of substandard care, neglect, and waste seem to have magnified, rather than been reduced. For a president who seems to have endless amounts of time to talk about the miseries of those living on the minimum wage, Obama’s seeming indifference to the severity of the problems faced by our returning veterans seeking care at VA facilities is shocking. 
   
   Late last week, CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on the lackluster attempts by the administration to address mismanagement issues—if not criminally negligent behavior—at the VA. What I found revealing about the interview is the exchange where Tapper questions whether Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is up to the task at hand given that Miller warned the president a year ago about serious allegations of misconduct at the agency: 
   
   Jake Tapper: How many stories like this, how many letters like this, how many dead veterans do you need before someone asks the question within the White House maybe this guy isn’t the best steward of these veterans? 
   
   Denis McDonough: The question, Jake, is are we doing everything we can every day to get the veterans the care and opportunities that they… 
   
   Jake Tapper: … But you’re not, this letter was sent a year ago and you guys ignored it. 
   
   Thus far, President Obama and his team have regarded the scandalous treatment of veterans seeking care from the government over which they preside as a political hiccup rather than an indefensible breakdown in competent management that has led to the deaths of at least 40 veterans. Late last week, McDonough assured us that Obama is “madder than hell” about the VA fiasco. 
   
   Please. We’ve seen the president show genuine flashes of anger toward the GOP in general, the Supreme Court following rulings he disagrees with, and anyone else who has the temerity to disagree with him on anything. In the present case Obama has largely been silent, absent, and behind closed doors—content to let Secretary Shinseki and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney bear the brunt of the growing storm in the media. 
   
   What is most shocking to me about the VA tempest is that it repeats a pattern of conduct we’ve seen from the president and his administration. Obama ran for president and asked Americans to hire him for another term based on his leadership skills, temperament, and ability to produce results. Instead, we’ve seen the president and his team evade responsibility (and with a tiresome frequency) for areas in which they are directly responsible, parse words in an attempt to mislead, and otherwise duck long enough for the political storm of the moment to pass over for sunnier days ahead. 
   
   Not this time. Americans of all political persuasions stand in solidarity behind those brave men and women who don the uniform to defend us from those who seek to harm our country and our allies. My Daily Beast colleague Jacob Siegel exclusively revealed that the VA facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico is only the latest hospital to keep secret waiting lists—and to destroy documents revealing criminal misconduct.
target: – Columnists on both the right and left are fuming about reports of secret Veterans Affairs hospital delays said to have resulted in 40 deaths. Both Ron Christie and Eugene Robinson note that while issues like Benghazi and IRS targeting may have been "witch hunts," this is a genuine scandal, and President Obama needs to take action. Writing at the Daily Beast, Christie points to a year-old letter from the House VA committee chair warning Obama of the problem. If the president is "madder than hell" over the crisis, as his chief of staff says he is, then why aren't we seeing that anger? Robinson, writing in the Washington Post, believes the president is privately angry—after all, he rarely shows anger publicly. But Robinson also believes that "more heads need to roll—and a criminal investigation should be launched." Obama may be a loyal boss, but VA head Gen. Eric Shinseki hasn't even shown real "comprehension" of the issue, and it may be time for him to go. Meanwhile, officials need "outside help, such as the FBI," to take a look at the situation and determine "not just whether rules were broken, but whether crimes were committed." Click for Robinson's full piece; Christie's is here.