Scapegoat

We are about to toss Secretary Shinseki under the bus.  Well done.  Problem solved – done and dusted as the Brits would say.  Righteous politicians slithering on their bellies, pandering to this group or that, have called for his head.  The media drooling at the prospect of a public flogging can’t stop counting down the minutes and seconds.  

Never mind the obstructionism in the most dysfunctional Congress in history – Shinseki is on thin ice.  Never mind the blatant indifference to reports from the VA Inspector General and countless Veterans groups over the years about veterans being denied care or waiting unacceptable periods of time – Shinseki is on thin ice.   Never mind the insipid self satisfaction of a media that reported on none of this with any integrity because they were too busy peddling their own political views as fact or following the trial of some hump in South Africa who offed his girlfriend and would have never made the news if he hadn’t been an athlete – Shinseki is on thin ice.

Now we can all go back to sleep, business as usual.  Back to pissing on each other shoes in the Capital while the veterans drown in urine; back to snickering privately at the prospect of using this tragedy to leverage more privatization while ignoring the fact that some vets are stating publicly that their own members of Congress ignored them as effectively as everyone else had; back to reporting on celebrities doing just about anything. 

Yeah it is all okay, all right, just fine because we have a scapegoat.  Shinseki is on thin ice.

If I were Secretary Shinseki I would tell President Obama to shove his job in which ever orifice would accommodate it.  I would tell this ungrateful nation to wake up, grow up, sober up; never mind staring at the idiot box and living vicariously through the sports team of your choice.  Pay some attention to the people you send to Washington.  Pay attention to the nightmare they are creating – it is your nightmare.  Never mind God, the Almighty doesn't live in Washington and never has.  Never mind looking to the influence peddlers you hire to lead this country for a moral conscience – might as well look to Jack the Ripper to run a battered women’s shelter.   Never mind allowing the Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Sarah Palins, Chuck Todds, David Gregorys and Joe Scarboroughs to define your reality – get off your ass and define it yourself.  No one is responsible for doing your thinking but you.  I take full responsibility for any mistakes I have made; you do the same.

That is what I would do, but then as Betty Davis once said, “I am a mean nasty bitch, and I am good at it.”