[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9076]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    THE UNFOLDING SCANDAL AT THE VA

  (Ms. FOXX asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, as the unfolding scandal at the VA 
demonstrates, the administration has a standard playbook for dealing 
with an unfolding PR disaster:
  The first step is to say the President learned about the situation on 
the news and is madder than anyone else about it;
  Step two is to declare an investigation underway;
  Step three is to implore us all to wait patiently for the always slow 
investigation to be completed;
  Step four is to declare the scandal old news.
  The underlying theme is that we must allow the bureaucratic machinery 
to sort out the problems, and we must not interfere with the process.
  Mr. Speaker, Samuel Johnson once said that patriotism is the last 
refuge of a scoundrel, but in our political culture today, process is 
the last refuge of those who seek to avoid true accountability.

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