On the heels of his seat-squirming
appearance before the House
Veterans Affairs Committee regarding
the robbery loss of personal data
on 26 million Veterans around
the country, VA Secretary Jim
Nicholson has begun the short
list of VA firings in the face
of Vet-outrage.

The VA employee who actually
took the data home has been
fired, and Dennis M. Duffy,
acting Assistant Secretary for
Policy and Planning has been
placed on administrative leave.
Also, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Policy, Michael H. McLendon
has resigned.

Secretary Nicholson has also
appointed Arizona attorney Richard
M. Romley as a new Special Advisor
For Information Security.

Of course we are not told at
this point why everyone was allowed
to stand around and wait for a
crisis before any of these changes
were made.

In his own hot-seat confrontation
with House Committee Chairman
Steve Buyer, another guy who
does the wait-and-see dance, Nicholson
attempted to play the Clueless Card
by saying that he had not been
advised of the data loss until
some 19 days after the incident
had occurred.

Of course we have heard NOTHING
from the House or Senate to fix
the larger problem of unqualified
and incompetent types who are
persistently appointed as VA Secretaries,
VA "Commissioners" and Board
appointees, and VA top level
political appointee designates.

The General Accounting Office
is another stand-in-the-corner
nut farm who refuses to step
up to the plate and impose
minimum qualification standards
upon future VA Secretary designates
such as those having a broad and
full Hospital management background
or a Ph.D. in national security
affairs, which would be far more
appropriate than Jim Nicholson's
lame and sorry "used-to-be" profile
as the former Republican Party
Chairman.

VSO's and the political parties
have long been using the VA
agency as a non-medical toilet
and dumping ground for unqualified
types with one stuck-on-stupid
confirmation after another by
both the House and the Senate
all based on misapplied and
inappropriate bravado and war
veteran toutings and the clangity
clang of medals bouncing off
the chests of these appointees.
Or alternatively, the dazzle
and glitz of political party
superstardom, none of which
applies to the rigors and
necessities of running a HUGE
national agency that provides
intimate medical care for the
nation's former federal national
security workforce (i.e. the
Veterans).

Those of us protesters and
advocates who have long been
beating the drums and songs
of the unqualified and incompetent
inside the VA agency have been
out in full force with the
"I told ya so" while the
other Parrot-Heads in our arena
who have been trying to hold
onto the Same Ole, Same Ole
are now walking in circles with
daze and disbelief.

At what point does somebody
intervene at the VA Cabinet
level and say: "This is
completely NUTS!! We absolutely MUST
adopt a policy of minimum
qualifications for VA appointees,
none of which has anything to do
with war medals and bravado or
political party superstardom!!"???

Veterans simply MUST start
the process of shutting up and
sitting down when it comes to
all of these appointment scenarios
in Washington because in the final
scheme of things, no good whatsoever
is coming out of it. If we continue
to have unqualified Veterans holding
office, then the political party
types will continue to point to
that is their own argument for putting
in other fools and jackasses who
have no business sitting in high
places at this VA agency. One
unqualified appointee begets another.

Veterans and political party
types need to find something
else to do in this government
and leave the VA agency by the wayside.
Top level medical administration
types and national security (NSA)
types are the only ones who
should be sitting in these kinds
of chairs, and I say that NOT to
mean those positions are
"interchangeable" either.

We are nearing a crisis, sabotage,
and subversion level in this
agency where the very lives of
Veterans are at stake, and the
only way to bring things under
control is to have the Veterans
and political party types get
over themselves, and bring in
an entire Batallion of highly
qualified Dream-Team types to
replace and occupy the agency
for a number of years into the
future to shake down and unwire
the mess that has left been behind
by the boneheads and know-nothings
like Jim Nicholson who use every
waking minute of the operations of
federal government to provide
THEMSELVES with personal opportunities
to "......learn a valuable lesson....."
at everyone elses life and
personal financial expense.
[ Not unlike the excuse factory
comimg from FEMA in the aftermath
of New Orleans. ]

When all the other firings are
finished, the prominent Vet
question will still remain:
"S-o-o-o-o-o, why is Jim Nicholson
still there ???"