The well-informed opinions of Wingnutia
The bundle of tics and neuroses that is called Michelle Malkin has studied the Walter Reed affair (as have her buddies at the Volokh Conspiracy), and the lesson she's learned is that "government-run health care sucks" and wonders "Will the Bush-bashers join with free-market critics to effect real change and help the troops who need and deserve better care?" You know how privatizing everything always does the trick, right?
Hey, wait a minute. What's that about a memo from Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi to Gen. Weightman, the now-former head of Walter Reed?
The memorandum “describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” the committee’s letter states. “According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed.” [....]The memo's existence was publicized last Friday, so it's not like this was a secret. But never let facts get in the way of rigid dogma, ever.The letter said the Defense Department “systemically” tried to replace federal workers at Walter Reed with private companies for facilities management, patient care and guard duty – a process that began in 2000.
“But the push to privatize support services there accelerated under President Bush’s ‘competitive sourcing’ initiative, which was launched in 2002,” the letter states.
Update: Utterly hysterical. Malkin has an update for the "haters," using the article cited above to show that privatization started under Clinton...and completely ignoring the following paragraph. And besides, wasn't getting the care out of the government's hands a good thing in her original post? When in doubt, blame the Clenis. Pathetic.