Washington Post columnist Chuck Lane noted Sunday that the Veterans Administration scandal represents “a huge setback” for the Obama administration’s effort to turn a “younger, more diverse” military into a Democratic political stronghold.
Lane appeared on Fox News Sunday to discuss the enormous VA appointment backlog, which has seen some veterans die while waiting for care. Lane noted that veterans — most of whom are older conservatives — occupy “an interesting place” by being dependent on big government for nearly all of their healthcare needs.
He also explained the rather strange politics surrounding the scandal — where Democrats attack a well-established bureaucracy, while Republicans promise to reform a broken government entity.
In the video that follows, Lane states:
It’s awkward for Republicans to be in the position of saying, ‘We’ll make big government work better,’ because usually their position is privatize, make smaller government work. So I think that’s kind of the jam the Republicans are in.
Now, of course, President Obama has been pushing very hard — his wife has been working with military families and so forth — trying to sort of turn veterans into a Democratic group, based on the younger, more diverse military that we have. And this is a huge setback to that effort.
This report, by Brendan Bordelon, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
