Buying the veteran vote

Everybody is slobbering all over themselves because President Obama has finally kept two campaign promises to veterans. You can just hear the lust in Paul Reickhoff’s words as he praises the President for his new plan veteran health care in the Huffington Post this morning;

Today, President Obama has taken action on two key campaign promises to America’s veterans–and two of IAVA’s top legislative priorities for 2009. Advance funding VA healthcare and an overhaul of military and VA recordkeeping will eliminate two of the most significant bureaucratic hurdles that keep veterans from the healthcare and benefits they have earned. Veterans nationwide applaud the Administration for making veterans and their families a priority. And we look forward to continuing to work together on the many other issues facing today’s veterans, including psychological injuries, unemployment and homelessness.

In the comments section of that article, a HuffPo reader reminds Reickhoff that Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into caring for veterans with this link to our post last month. Initially, the administration had planned on funding our health care on the backs of veterans and their insurance companies. But then they discovered how big of a voice veterans have in this country.

Yesterday, Mr. Wolf from Blackfive emailed me this CNN link about how an “overtired” staffer accidentally forwarded an email discussion about the president’s schedule to the media.

The last line that CNN quotes is pretty telling;

In another exchange, one staffer recommended nixing a line about Obama meeting with leaders from the Veterans Service Organizations and Military Service Organizations since the president was now meeting with them before his remarks in an event closed to the media.

“Can we keep it and just change it to say before. Its good for us to say we are meeting with them,” another replied.

In other words; “Let’s fool them into thinking we care about veterans”.

Michelle Malkin picked it up and said this about it;

“It’s good for us to say we are meeting with them.”

If this were Bush, of course, the media would pound his administration for cynically exploiting a meeting with veterans for political expediency.

But since it’s Obama, he’s just “achieving another moment.”

Actually, it much worse than that – Obama is buying veterans’ votes. If Obama really cared about veteran health, he wouldn’t let us fall behind in the military technology race by cutting weapons programs like he is planning to do with the defense budget. And he certainly wouldn’t have been so adamant about billing service-connected treatment to veterans’ insurance companies.

Yeah, the HuffPoians are writing over there that Obama only “floated” the idea, but that’s not the way the story goes.

Emanuel and Obama told the VSO reps that they wouldn’t budge on it – until they heard your voices. And when the Administration finally capitulated, Obama wasn’t even in the room – he sent in Emanuel to tell the VSO reps that the proposal was to be withdrawn. I guess he didn’t have the guts to admit he was wrong and tried to screw veterans to the wall.

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud Obama’s support for veterans, but I’m not going to be sucked in. There’s another shoe to drop, and I’m just waiting for it.

ADDED: Pat Dollard is on to IAVA, too, and finds Soros money.