I’m not sure who thought Jim Nicholson was qualified to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the first place, but he’s been heading the cabinet agency since 2005. Today, to the great relief of veterans and their families, Nicholson announced his resignation. (thanks to tAiO for the tip)
The department has been under intense scrutiny for its treatment of injured veterans returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as they transition from the military health care system to the VA system, and for its chronically slow processing of the disability claims of disabled, injured or sick veterans from all eras.
Critics complain about lost paperwork, a shortage of VA caseworkers, a backlog of hundreds of thousands of disability claims, and long waits for veterans trying to get initial appointments in the VA health care system.
For a Bush administration burdened by hacks and incompetents, Nicholson was one of the more embarrassing members of the president’s team. The WaPo’s Christopher Lee noted that the VA has been running a “model health system,” but the truth is that system was established in the 1990s; all Nicholson had to do was not screw it up too much.
In far too many instances, it looked like he was trying to do just that.
* In March, we learned that Nicholson was offered a proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy. He scrapped the plans and decided it was more important to cut corners on his budget. (The program, called the Contingency Tracking System, cost less than $1 million to build and required only a handful of staff to maintain.) When asked about the system after the Walter Reed fiasco, Nicholson told ABC News, “I’m not sure I know what program you’re referring to.”
* Around the same time, veterans’ groups made clear they found it nearly impossible to work with Nicholson, labeling him “a mouthpiece for the Bush administration” who was “slow to respond to increasing strains on his agency.”
* In February, confronted with evidence of mounting troop injuries, Nicholson downplayed the problem, saying that a lot of the 200,000 veterans seeking medical care “come in for dental problems.”
* Nicholson oversaw and was slow to respond to a massive data-security breach at the VA. He initially told the public that personal information for 50,000 military personnel had been stolen. It turned out the theft affected millions of veterans.
* Through sheer incompetence, Nicholson came up over $2 billion short on his budget, in part because he didn’t anticipate higher costs at VA hospitals — during a war.
* One of the few things his office took seriously was mandating that his picture appear in every VA facility in the country. Those who were slow to cooperate received letters, asking officials to give this their “highest priority,” which would lead to “daily updates on the status until we are assured that all of our facilities have a current picture displayed.”
Nicholson was always a hack. In 1992, he was best known for standing at the fax machine all day, sending out messages that attacked Al Gore for wanting to do away with the internal “combustible” engine. He apparently got the VA job because he raised close to $380 million for the RNC in the 2000 cycle.
He won’t be missed.