A shocking lack of self-awareness has befallen the Obama administration over the past several weeks, specifically when it comes to its own handling of the Veterans Affairs scandal. It began back in early May, when, after calls increased for VA secretary Eric Shinseki to be canned, the president “regrettably,” and after a lot of prodding from members of Congress on both sides, accepted the resignation, despite a clear need for a change of leadership.   

After the resignation things only got worse for the VA, with shocking reports of widespread backlash against whistleblowers at VA hospitals. Almost one in four whistleblowers reported being punished in one way or another, from having their hours docked to being moved to another position.

Then a report surfaced at the Daily Caller chronicling the backlog at the VA hospital in Memphis. The exposé states:

A failure to scan outsourced medical records has caused an approximate three- to five-month backlog at the Memphis Veteran Administration Medical Center, The Daily Caller has learned.

TheDC was exclusively given a photo snapped of the medical records room on June 12, 2014. In the photo, hundreds of unprocessed medical records sit idly, causing delays of up to five months.

The president pledged to fix the problem. However, according to a follow-up report done again by the Daily Caller:

The new supervisor of the Medical Records Department is Rebecca England, and according to the whistleblower, England has approved overtime for Clark so he could help catch the department up on the other backlog.

According to the whistleblower, England took over after her position as the compliance officer was phased out.

The whistleblower said that England hasn’t been certified in medical records, and has no prior experience in medical records.

Essentially, the new replacement is another inexperienced bureaucrat trying to catch up on a serious and sometimes deadly backlog.

Instead of modeling its staffing choices after the president, himself an incompetent bureaucrat, the government should find someone more qualified to address the VA’s problems.