John Hayward On Shinseki Resignation: 'Obama And His People Don't Understand The Concept Of Accountability'
By Chris Stigall
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Chris Stigall spoke with John Hayward, a Contributor to Human Events, on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about the resignation of President Obama's Secretary of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, in the wake of a scandal in the department over long wait times for veterans to receive medical care at VA hospitals and a cover-up to conceal those wait times.
Hayward detailed why he thinks General Shinseki met a different fate than previous members of the administration besieged by political scandal.
"He had every reason to think he wasn't going anywhere because that's how these things are done in the Obama Administration, nobody gets fired. One of the big reasons for that is that the President thinks that if he doesn't fire anybody and doesn't hold anybody accountable, the story will go away. He can just kind of outlast it…That obviously wasn't going to work here because the party was panicking. The President's party was in full on stampede looking at their internal polls and how angry people were, so they got a hold of him and said Shinseki had to go."
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John Hayward
He went on to criticize the President for not being accountable for the actions of his appointees.
"It's this entirely foreign concept that President Obama and his people don't understand called accountability. They have no idea what that means. They think taking responsibility means after a week or two you give a press conference and say the magic words, 'I take responsibility,' and then the scandal is over and that's it," Hayward stated.
Heyward castigated Republicans for their timid reaction to the scandal.
"I think part of it is ineptness, part of it is nervousness about 2014. They want the elections to go their way. They are very nervous about rocking the boat or doing anything that would distract from it. They know how this goes. They remember Bill Clinton. The shadow of the Clinton impeachment hangs long over the Republican Party. One of their bits of received wisdom from that is they think they went too far with him and that he was able to turn it around on them like a judo flip and pin them to the mat and that's why they politically suffered afterwards. They're determined to never do that again."
