KSFO's Sussman: Wash. Post's Walter Reed exposé shows "the mainstream media doesn't support our troops"
On the March 5 broadcast of San Francisco radio station KSFO's Morgan, Sussman, and Vic, co-host Brian Sussman described The Washington Post's coverage of deteriorating conditions and inadequate care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as "stupid reporting," and "ridiculous reporting," adding, "[I]t's just another sign that the mainstream media doesn't support our troops. They don't support the mission. God forbid, they don't support the commander-in-chief. It's just the same old news." FreeRepublic.com spokesman Kristinn Taylor responded with the baseless assertion that "the shocking things that they found they held onto for months ... to release at the right time, instead of immediately running and saying ... 'This is the problem. This needs to be fixed.' Taylor went on to say the Post "sat on it [the information] until they were ready to ... hit their target at the right opportunity." Morgan, Sussman, and Vic co-host Melanie Morgan added that the Post withheld information instead of "actually doing something to help people who needed it."
Morgan, Sussman, and Taylor were referring to a Washington Post investigative report by staff writers Dana Priest and Anne Hull, published on February 18 and 19, that exposed problems experienced by soldiers at Walter Reed once they were no longer inpatients at the hospital, including the substandard conditions at the facility's Building 18, which "housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." According to Priest and Hull, "Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses." The report also discussed the bureaucratic complications plaguing outpatients at the facility. On March 1, Priest and Hull penned another report noting that "[t]op officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years."
In the wake of the Post report, the official in charge of Walter Reed, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, "was fired," and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey was forced to resign. In addition, Congress opened hearings on conditions at Walter Reed, while President Bush appointed a presidential commission to investigate conditions at veterans hospitals and facilities.
From the March 5 broadcast of KSFO's Morgan, Sussman, and Vic:
SUSSMAN: Here's the problem, again. It's biased reporting going in. Everyone forgets all of the miracles that are coming out of Walter Reed and other veterans hospitals, where some guys who have been severely injured are coming out. Modern medical technology has done wonders. We could go on and on and on with stories like that regarding our war veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan, who've been treated in these hospitals and, hey, listen, if you want to do some reporting on troubles in hospitals, go to any hospital in America, and let's talk about the guy who went in for the right knee operation but had his left knee operated on; let's talk about the people who are getting TB and other diseases in our hospitals -- this is just part of the medical community at large. It's stupid reporting, it's ridiculous reporting, and it's just another sign that the mainstream media doesn't support our troops. They don't support the mission. God forbid, they don't support the commander-in-chief. It's just the same old news.
TAYLOR: Yeah. In a lot of ways, that is true because The Washington Post was in there, they said, for hours, hundreds of hours surreptitiously, and the shocking things that they found they held onto for months --
SUSSMAN: Of course.
TAYLOR: -- to release at the right time, instead of immediately running and saying, you know, "This is the problem. This needs to be fixed." You know, they held -- they sat on it until they were ready to, you know, hit their target at the right opportunity.
MORGAN: Instead of actually doing something to help people who needed it.
exactly. our injured troops actually prefer moldy, rat infested rooms, and love waiting months for medical appointments.
Hate to break it to you, but society continually moves left. It's inevitable. Any long-term look at societal mores would reveal that our attitudes, beliefs and policies become more liberal over time. This is what Richard Dawkins calls the shifting zeitgeist. And sorry to tell, oh pixelated one, but the arrow is always left. The only way you could stop it is if you were to turn America into a totalitarian fascist state, something a lot of cons would welcome.
Oops. This was a response to Colonel Mustard's off-topic rant, now deleted.
Why don't these three jackals do something for the troops instead of spouting off? What a joke.
I thought I had read that Morgan woman went to Iraq to 'entertain' troops. Then it was heard later some soldier was asked who the act was. His reply was something akin to 'that old lady with the big rack'. So, I guess she played her perceived strength.
Yeah I remember that. One of the cons who made the trip took a picture of a market in Turkey or Jordan posted it on their website with a caption saying it was in Iraq. Thee is nothing genuine about these people. Fake facts, fake trips and probably fake boobs.
I believe that was this loser. And he is a real boob.
I have a thought involving everyone's favorite moral authority, Sean Hannity. I know I have heard him brag on many occasions how many times he has visited WR, and at the same time accuseing people of not visiting (meaning Dems). My thought is, if Hannity visited so many times, did he not follow up with any of the soldiers? Or did he just meet with them when the opportunity for self promotion was at its best. You would think that this guy would have met with so many of the young men and women in our armed forces that he would have formed some kind of bond with one of them and followed the rehabilitation process.
Curse the mainstream media for their shabby operation of Walter Reed.
The greatest disinfectant is sunlight, and the media did good here in opening up the drapes on this horrible situation. Shame is a powerful weapon and it should be used regularly to get our government to do the right thing.
Don't you just love that FREE press. If these yakers were in charge that would become a thing of the past.
Conservatives: Love the solider, hate the veteran. It's sad but true.
Can you blame them? A wounded veteran can't kill brown people or steal oil for them...what good are they? Do you know how many bullets you can buy for the cost of a new hospital bed?
It's the same with babies. Once a baby is out of the womb, or the soldier is out of the battle or army, they're someone else's problem.
I don't understand why vets, particularly wounded vets, aren't given a "credit card" of sorts similar to the one my health insurance company gives me for my flex benefits account. I can only charge medical supplies and services on it. But it's easy, there's no paper work, and I can go anywhere I want for supplies or services.
Vets, wounded vets in particular, should be able to get the best care for life, from any place they want it. I'm personally willing to take a hit on my tax return in order to provide that. So many soldiers coming back missing limbs... they're going to need new prosthetics every what, seven to ten years? For sixty or more years? If new amazing bionics come available, they should get those as well.
I'm rambling now. But it shames this country that when these vets deserve our best for having given their best and more, they're being housed in mouldy, rat infested digs. Truly shameful.
Hey don't you know that supporting the troops only means sending them into danger, and getting them killed, and or injured and wounded.
Keep rambling, Marv. The other side isn't, that's for sure.
The projected cost for treatment of those wounded so far in the War in Iraq is in excess of $300 Billion dollars over the next forty years.
It's funny, how the right is always saying that we don't support the troops. My dictionary defines the word support as "bear all or part of". I don't think the right uses the same dictionary.
In fact, I'm waiting for some of them to start squawking about their high taxes.
"I'm personally willing to take a hit on my tax return in order to provide that"
Bingo! You've hit the nail on the head. The NeoClowns aren't willing to take that hit. They aren't even willing to pay for their illegal war, much less the healthcare for its veterans.
I think most of us ( well most of us that care about people) are willing to take a hit on our taxes so that everyone in our counrty is provided the best medical services available.
"I'm personally willing to take a hit on my tax return in order to provide that. "
This is the message that our elected leaders need to hear, true patriots are willing to sacrifice , even if the patriot disagrees with the "mission". We are sophistacated enough to make that distinction. We understand the long term peril to our nation if vets are not taken care of as well as the idiots in power who sent them into harms way.
I knew it'd be only a matter of time before these lowlifes tried to spin this so the media was responsible for the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed.
So much for "support the troops". That's BS. They support the war, they support the administration and they don't give a rat's ass about the troops.
This is a rightwing media and bloviator tactic that drives me crazy. Its pure bizzaro world. The problem is NEVER caused by those who are actually responsible for the problem its always caused by those who EXPOSE the problem. Yeah its not the neglect by those with the power to see the soldiers are cared for in a decent facility its the fault of those who EXPOSE that it is a substandard facility which SHOULD have the effect of helping to SOLVE THE PROBLEM. These people have no shame
The Daily Show did a great funny piece about just this thing on Monday I think it was. About how the Bush administration, and others around Bush and Co. like to place blame on everyone except for themselves, even though Bush has declared that he is the "decider" and that "he's the President, and that the buck stops with him." Just look at Tony Snow's response the other day when this story broke. What did he answer? Go ask the Pentagon, it's not our problem. That sums everything up nicely. No accountability in the bad times, but take full credit when things are good. And here I thought that Bush was Commander in Chief, and actually RAN the military. So for his spokesperson to say, go talk to the Pentagon makes no sense. Then again, we are talking about Bush.
Yeah, I think the line was something like "It's not the fault of the Executive Branch. Go ask the Pentagon... which is part of the Executive Branch..."
Yes! I think they said, "Go ask the Pentagon, which is the biggest branch of the Executive branch."
I love that show.
It's, basically, how a moron thinks. Now, perhaps these folks aren't all that dumb... but, by perpetuating this incessant nonsense about 'not supporting the troops' really, REALLY shows what sort of opinion these folks have for their listeners, viewers, constituents.
Bottom line - these A-holes continue to tow the line and hope that their base continues to bite. Well... I have a feeling you can't go back to the well that often and with such reckless abandon. Maybe?
Unfortunately, it's doubtful, at best. Many of their listeners no doubt, have had the words "liberal media" bashed into their skulls so often, and so loudly, that they indeed would believe that the media is behind this Walter Reed stuff. I mean, Bush and Company constantly blame the media for how things are going in Iraq (the media only reports the "bad" stuff), so why would their syncophants think otherwise? Remember, we are probably dealing with a lot of people who proudly proclaim themselves to be "dittoheads", which as we all know means they accept whatever someone says, and just agree without question. Why should this be any different?
I agree with that. I think the die-hard dittohead sort of person retains a certain level of pathology... they almost need to be lied to. Eat it up. Now, of course, there are nuts on the left too... conspiracy theorists and the like. But, the diehard rightwing base who enjoy blaming everyone and looking up to that shining leader... classic. That 30% or so, 'cultural warriors' that will do anything King George (or Lamebaugh) tells him/her.
Unfortunately, it works on their base. I had a Conservative acquaintance of mine tell me with a straight face that the media was going to "bury us" in Iraq.
Salon,
it's worth noting that they implied the media sat on this for months waiting for the right time to spring this one. So, I'm wondering, what could the so called liberal media benefit from producing this evidence now instead of, oh, say October last year?
Solon,
I'm curious on your take from what I think is the meat of the cocoanut... "the shocking things that they found they held onto for months".
This story should have been exposed. The deplorable conditions were not the fault of the "exposers"...but entirely the fault of the military brass.
Yet, mmfa did not debunk the issue that these reporters sat on the story...while soldiers suffered.
it's an extremely long story with a lot of investigating being done. again, what exactly would be their purpose in sitting on this story?
As *I* took it, the "sitting on" probably derived from the wishes of at least some of the interviewed".
"that exposed problems experienced by soldiers at Walter Reed once they were no longer inpatients at the hospital."
As to expediting the solution by disclosing the problem at the risk of those interviewed being accorded Bungle's "whistleblower" treatment, since the big shots at the Pentagon had been repeatedly apprised of such problems for at least three years, that seems wasteful haste. Most of the interviewed apparently preferred to leave Reed with at least the same number of limbs and same level of benefits that they took into the rehab.
My take is that they DID expose it and obviously had no hand in creating the problem. How long they 'sat' on it is a complicated issue. There are many reasons not to immediatly toss out a story. It might have taken time to develop, it may be that as they talked to those responsible they were told it was being fixed and waited to see if that actually happened. We dont know what thier motives were not immediatly rushing this story out.
These people are like children who cover their ears and go lalalalalalalalala when they can't face reality.
These guys are kidding right? No, wait, they're not. This is sad that they are blaming the media, of all people, for the conditions that the Washington Post found at Walter Reed. How about actually blaming the Army? Or this and other past administrations? According to vets, and active duty folks that I know, most have said the same things. The people at these hospitals are awesome, but the places themselves, and how they operate, are sub par, and have been for a long time.
I don't know this, but I'm thinking W. doesn't use this hospital if he's ill?
Probably Bethesda, even though Walter Reed is closer.
Whichever has the better pretzel ward
As I understand it, the care at Walter Reed is virtually without peer in its excellence. It's what happens after you've had your operation that is the disgraceful part here. They're housing recovering vets in other facilities associated with WRAMC that are very subpar. I guess part of the reason is that these facilities were slated for shut down before the Iraq invasion and were in disrepair. But that doesn't excuse the fact that they remain in horrible shape almost four years later.
BIZARRO PUNDIT SAY: PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT TROOP NO SUPPORT TROOP!
I don't understand how making the injured troops live in moldy, rat-infested, sub-standard conditions is supporting them.
Exposing the conditions and making the Army do something about it (Walter Reed is an Army hospital, not a Veterans' Administration hospital) is the best support they could ever receive, short of having clean, sanitary conditions in the first place.
They have terrible injuries, why should their surroundings expose them to life-threatening infections?
I love the desperate shrill cries of a right-winger hoisted by the petard of their own hollow slogan. Support the Troops. As if one of those yahoos has a clue what actually supporting the military is. It certainly is NOT sending them to war with inadequate equipment, or reinventing the "mission" of the war in terms of whatever political spin the WH dreams up this week, or cutting funding for veterans, or increasing co-payments for veterans, or housing vets recovering from critical injuries in substandard buildings overrun with mice and cockroaches, and it most certainly is NOT a yellow ribbon on the back hatch of a gas-guzzling SUV, which has more to do with why we are malingering in Iraq than terrorism or WMD or spreading democracy.
Randy
Facts are dangerous to Democracy!!! We must stay ignorant, cowering in fear, and silent otherwise we aren't supporting the troops! /Sarcasm
BTW - Why doesn't Sussman do a "commentary" from Baghdad - outside of the green zone, of course.
I'm sorry for my language, but what f**king morons. How is this the media's fault, they don't dictate policy for vets. I've heard rumors about Walter Reed for years. These guys don't care about the troops, they just want to cover their parties a$$.
Sussman et al are cowards who don't give a flying flip if veterans are treated worse than peasant crap. On account of a self-preservation instinct on overdrive, they only care about one thing...the mission!
BTW anyone defending thes clowns is a moron and a disgrace.
Wait for it. I'm sure the defenders of these folks will be along at any minute harping about the so called "liberal media" and how they don't support the troops as has been proven because they report stories and things like that.
As stated here before, this Con Crowd up to and including the White House mob reminds me of the great line from the movie "ROCKETMAN". When the guy screws up his always says........."IT WASN'T ME". Hence the new motto for the Republicans.
P.S. I am surprised that the Three Sooges don't tell the troops to get that DICK CHENEY INSURANCE so that when you need help with your "fake" wounds that you can get your own care.
Wonder where Dick goes for his problems...certainly not a VETS hospital
Cheney wouldn't go to a vets hospital, simply because he's not a vet.
EXACTLY...but he has helped fill them up.
Also, if the Washington Post would have run this story the day after their visit, Manny, Hoe and Jack would have complained about releasing this at the "right time". Well, now IS the time..deal with it.
"It's stupid reporting, it's ridiculous reporting, and it's just another sign that the mainstream media doesn't support our troops. They don't support the mission. God forbid, they don't support the commander-in-chief. "
My friend has a 5 year old who says things are stupid, stupid stupid. It's a terrible habit and it's also stupid. The main stream media isn't supposed to support anything. they are supposed to report.
Ah, I get it, "Troops" is a code word as in:
TheRepublicanOccupying theOffice of thePresidencySince 2001
See, they "Support the Troops"
BTW
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/under_va_chief_.html
Melanie Morgan
Why do we even give this witch the time of day? How many people listen to her? She is only in SF correct? Does she deserve national press?
Our troops deserve to come home
From warmonger Cheney and Bushs war.
Well, maybe these guys have a point. After all, it must hurt the troops' morale to know that the NeoClowns don't give a rat's ass about them once they get wounded. Maybe it's best that they don't know that... otherwise, they may not be so willing to take a bullet for Puddinhead's oil war.
Only if we blindly follow our leaders will be truly free - Frank Burns M*A*S*H
The problem is that the Dittobots don't realize that Frank Burns was supposed to be funny.
Hey, where are the Zombies? I think some real head scratchings going on for these talking points.
Libby conviction talking points are taking up all of their brain power. So far I've heard:
*This is a misuse of the justice system
*There was no original crime committed
*How can you expect a person to remembere everything he said.
They're so dizzy from the spin that the republicons need to sit down for awhile to clear their heads.
This is how the rightwing apologists will frame the deplorable neglect our returning veterans endured.
Along with blaming anyone but themselves they will dehumanize the reality of the story. They will shift the focus to conditions as in the conditions of the hospital facilities as opposed to actual human indignity and suffering caused by neglect.
Next, they will attempt to conflate this horrible example of abuse with some mythical wingnut version of universal healthcare.
But we know the truth. We know this is a natural cosequence of the right's desire to shrink government small enough to drown it in a bathtub. This absurd, piteous maltreatment of our nation's sons and daughters is about cutting costs.
Why hasn't the "liberal mainstream media" pointed out how all this mold and decay actually BEGAN during the Clinton administration? (Joking)
It's because they are understaffed. That is why they are still reporting on missing documents and hard drives during the clinton admin, there is just so much to write! It's going to be awhile before we get to the stuff about missing documents and hard drives and security lapses that happened during the bush admin...
If you want to know how long this problem has existed, read "Born on the Fourth of July." The author describes rat problems during the Viet Nam era. Personally when i left active duty, and moved to Gainesville,Florida, i was told if i was having a heart attack and the ambulance brought me to the VA hospital, they would hve to turn me away. This was in 1987. This should let us understand the problems have been there for a pretty long time. Perhaps the problem is that medical care costs often get in the way of "black box" spending on expensive weapons systems, which probably will never be needed.
It's really too bad that investigative reporting on the subject is being so politicized by various talking heads in the media. The three jackals (as someone else referred to them) on this radio program should be thankful that someone exposed this mess. Maybe now there's a chance something will be done to correct the problems, and who would be against that? Or would they prefer the issues at Walter Reid just go on, unnoticed and unfixed?
Lest we forget, the talking point in play here is that we lost Vietnam because we didn't "support the troops" (a story, by the way, that MMFA helped debunk). Thereafter, a standard criticism of the left has been that they don't support the troops. To this very day, the Democrats in congress are falling over each other showing that they support the troops though they disagree with the policy. But really, saying that the people responsible for exposing the Walter Reed conditions don't support the troops, even though thanks to them it is now probable that something, however token, will be done about them, strays so far from logic that the people who actually accept it are beyond reason. You might as well argue with a flat-earther. There are signs, though, that their number is diminishing (though I can't believe 29% still approve of Bush), as shown most dramatically by the 2006 elections.
The hypocrisy of these people is right up there with those who once said that Clinton's lies about oral sex corrupted the rule of law and threatened the very republic, who now say that the Libby purjury charge is a thing made-up by a partisan prosecutor, with no original crime.
My God, these sickos are playing "Through the Looking Glass"! Let's just silence them...put dog muzzles on 'em. They'd sound better growling than making things up then whining.
I wanted to check out KSFO talking heads so I went to their web site and listened for a while. Sussman apparently has his own show in the evening. He wanted a liberal, any libreal, to let him know how many amputee there are due to the Afgan and Iraq war. Of course no one called. Who in their right mind would even listen to these num nuts for more than 5-10 minutes? So he said that there were 500 and change.
Since I'm on the east coast the best I could do was send him an e-mail. I found the following information and e-mailed to him:
Heard you say that there were 500 and change amputees due to the Afgan and Iraq war. As of Sept. 30 2006, war amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan numbered 725, according to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which also has a military amputee center.
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/08/MNG45M7CHT1.DTL&type=health
If its 500 or 700 it's one to damn many. We are at war in Iraq, not to avenge 9/11, or becasue of WMDs, but becasue George W. needed to put his name in the history books. Well he has done that as the worst president this country will ever have. How can you look at yourself in the mirror each morning after defending him and his administration? The blood of all of those who have died or maimed will be the only legacy that President George W. Bush will be remembered for.
sfcretiredDid
the Suss Man reply to you? Just curious.
I'd love to see the response.
Who in their right mind would even listen to these num nuts for more than 5-10 minutes?
Well I did and do, because at some point I felt it is our responsibility to expose their violent rhetoric and nonsense to their advertisers and to their corporate bosses. This is COMPENSATED speech. This is not the ravings of a lunatic on the street corner. What is that saying "Free Speech isn't free!" (It's been bought and pay for by the Right-wing Noise Machine!)
When these "facts" get out there under the guise of news and Views.( BTW, "The News and Views you won't here anywhere else" is their tag line at KSFO) you have to push and ask the question, "Are these news or views?. And who is paying for these inaccurate views?" Inaccurate is one thing, which I believe is insidious and frankly bad for an educated public and a democratically elected system of leaders.
Not knowing the truth makes a difference in terms of what we decided to do. Their violent rhetoric is what is especially troubling and advertisers who sponsor this should be educated so they can decide if they want to continue to sponsor this.
WHY DON'T YOU BIZARRO SUPPORT OUR BIZZARO TROOPS?! BIZZARO!
OK, Sussman, you're right that a lot of hospitals around the country are underfunded, understaffed, overcrowded, and neglected. No one is disputing that. The point is, these hospitals are not designed to care for veterans, and in a time of war, you would expect funding to Walter Reed and the VA to increase, wouldn't you? If 9/11 changed everything (a phrase I'm sure you have echoed a few times), then it certainly should have changed the way we fund and maintain our military hospitals. That is the point of the exposé. Sure The Post could find some run down hospital to run a story about, but why? When we are at war, and many men and women are coming home injured, Walter Reed becomes quite a bit more relevent.
Because of the media exposure the Walter Reed scandal has received, conditions will almost certainly improve for patients treated there. So tell me again, Mr. Sussman, how this "doesn't support the troops."
*On a side note, can't you just picture the look the expression on Dubya's face when someone tries to explain PTSD to him:
"Post-traumatic Stress Disorder? What's that, some psychobabble mumbo-jumbo? Sounds a lot like that 'Global Warming.' When are these science types gonna stop making up all this bad stuff?"
When the soldiers are shedding their blood on the alter of Bushworship the GOP stands up and cheers.
When they come home mentally and physically disabled, in debt, unemployed, and homeless, the GOP treats them like they are no better than roadkill.
What really matters. Someday the US will have to fight a real war, maybe Kim ill will ingest some bad mushrooms and lob a nuke at Tokyo, who knows. But rest assured that with way to many humans on this little speck of cosmic dust that is our only home, sooner or later another sh11t storm will come down on us. At that time, with our national security truly at stake, will we be able to field an effective fighting force if we have been neglecting veterans from the previous conflicts?