EX-OBAMA DEFENSE SECRETARY: White House Tried to "Destroy Me"

By The Tower

In a shocking interview in Foreign Policy Magazine, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel accused White House officials of trying to “destroy” him personally in his last days in office. The comments have sent a stream of commentary across Washington and suggest a further erosion of the President’s legacy on foreign policy.

Hagel resigned in late 2014 after he took issue with the administration’s decision-making process, and especially President Obama’s decision not to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons, ordering the military to stand down on August 30, 2013. This came in the wake of the President’s declaration that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line.” In Hagel’s view, he told Foreign Policy, “A president’s word is a big thing, and when the president says things, that’s a big deal.” Hagel’s critique of the decision-making process was covered in an earlier post.

White House says Obama only learned of VA Death Scandal on TV (Like IRS-gate, Fast and Furious, etc.)

Do you get the sense that Barack Obama doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks? I mean that the administration's lies are now so half-hearted that they get exposed as lies within minutes.

Consider this story, reported by the British press, which is where we Americans now have to get our news.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wound up with egg on his face Monday as he told reporters that President Barack Obama first learned from a TV news report that his Veterans Administration was denying medical care to vets with secret off-the-books-waiting lists...

...Obama has come under fire before for saying he was made aware of scandal-worthy shortcomings in his own administration by watching television, including the IRS tea party-targeting scandal that rocked Washington 12 months ago and the Operation Fast and Furious saga that has tainted his Justice Department for years.

...A CNN reporter asked Carney on Monday when the president was 'first made aware ... of these fraudulent lists that were being kept to hide the wait times' at VA medical centers... 'You mean the specific allegations,' Carney asked, 'that I think were reported first by your news network out of Phoenix, I believe? ... We learned about them through the reports. I will double check if that is not the case. But that is when we learned about them and that is when I understand Secretary Shinseki learned about them, and he immediately took the action that he has taken.'

After the Operation Fast and Furious scandal broke, Obama responded to national outrage in an interview broadcast by CNN's John King on October 12, 2011, similarly saying he was out of the loop until he turned on his television.

Of course, in typical fashion, it turns out Obama was warned six years ago of these issues.