“He replied, that I must needs be mistaken, or that I said the thing which was not. (For they have no Word in their language to express Lying or Falsehood).”
— A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Jonathan Swift.
Lemuel Gulliver, please meet Lt. General Kevin Kiley, U.S. Army Surgeon General, the man responsible for the care of wounded U.S. soldiers at Building 18 of the Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington, D.C. who told Judy Woodruff of PBS this week:
Oh, I think the repairs are going to be done by the end of the week, with the exception of one thing, which is a leaky roof, which we need to wait for the roof to dry. The contractors have already told us we’ll get that sealed up. … I guarantee you that the health care here is of the very highest order and has been. The issues, as you’ve heard in several press conferences, have been about the quality of life, specifically some of the issues in Building 18, and then the bureaucracy, which is not a function of letting soldiers languish.
Excuse me, but these are pretty disgusting and disingenuous words coming from a Lt. General in the U.S. Army charged with providing decent, modern care and treatment for badly wounded soldiers who was caught red-handed not providing it.
What we have here is a Lt. General simultaneously stating there are no problems and the problems are being fixed as quickly as possible. What we have is a General simultaneously saying that soldiers have always been getting the finest treatment possible and that all of the existing deficiencies in their treatment are being corrected. Except for the leaking roof of course, which can’t be fixed until it dries out.
Is this guy running a U.S. Army hospital or trying to rent a slum?
We can’t fix the leaking roof until it dries out. ?
What if it rains ?
Perhaps the most galling part of the Lt. General’s comments were his haughty and transparent efforts to re-spin the story, to tell the reporters they did not see what they could plainly see, or as Lt. Gen. Kiley bluntly described his task … to reset their thinking:
It is our responsibility to look at the process through the eyes of our patients. And we need to be well-focused on that. And those great, young Americans deserve nothing but the very best health care, which I believe they’re getting. I want to reset the thinking that, you know, while we have some issues here, this is not horrific, catastrophic failure at Walter Reed. I mean, these are not good. But you saw rooms that were perfectly acceptable.
Let’s now catalog the General’s quantum spin:
- So long as a few rooms are “perfectly acceptable”, we should ignore all the rooms that are covered with mold and mildew. Again, is Lt. Gen. Kiley a slumlord in his spare time? Does he run a cheap motel that advertises “Some Rooms Perfectly Acceptable” ? Or a restaurant where “Some Food Not Tainted” ?
- So long as the disgusting conditions at Building 18 at Walter Reed do not constitute a “horrific, catastrophic failure” of health care, this is really much ado over nothing, and it’s your fault, the press, for blowing this all out of proportion. Implication: I would not be standing here if not for the Washington Post’s meddling — and I deeply resent it.
- “I want to reset the thinking that …” Translation: I want to reset your thinking. I want to change the subject. I want to rewrite your story. Let’s talk about all the good things we’re doing. How come you only come down to Walter Reed to do negative stories. Why can’t you write about the rooms we’ve got that aren’t covered with mildew and the roofs that aren’t leaking? Why do you hate America so much?
Now we get to the thing which is not:
“I guarantee you that the health care here is of the very highest order and has been.”
Here we have the U.S. Army Surgeon General at a hastily called press conference, showing off rooms with still-wet paint to cover up the mold and mildew, with a leaking roof that he says can’t be fixed until it “dries out,” all of which was only made public by several months of undercover reporting by the Washington Post, and he claims the health care at Building 18 has always been of the “highest order.”
If so, why the need for all the fresh paint, fixing the roof, or even the press conference ? Doesn’t the singular fact that 20 news crews and the Lt. General are in the same location at a hospital building with just-painted-over mold and mildew and a still-leaking roof provide object evidence that health care at Walter Reed has not lately been of the “highest order” ?
Here’s where Lt. General Kiley demonstrates how stupid we and the press are. The deplorable conditions in the patient rooms at Building 18 — as all health care professionals know — are not “health care related issues.” They are merely “quality of life issues” and are thus totally separate and distinct from the quality of the health care the wounded soldiers receive in the actual treatment rooms. It’s perfectly normal for hospital rooms to be filled with mold and mildew and mice feces, so long as the treatment rooms themselves are somewhat clean. You see, laypeople like us do not appreciate this difference. Just like a broken clock is right twice a day. And a leaky roof stops leaking once the rain stops.
Let’s remember what Lt. General Kiley would prefer we forget. If not for two journalists working undercover for many months, Building 18 at Walter Reed would be just as decrepit today as it has been for many months, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense would still be doing absolutely nothing to fix it.
Except saying the thing which is not.
