Why Obama Should Have Stuck with Shinseki

As Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, apologized for the problems at his agency on Friday morning, a few hours before he resigned, he must have known that his days were probably numbered. Following the publication of an interim inspector general’s report showing that officials throughout the V.A. system falsified records about how long patients were waiting to see doctors, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill had been calling for his resignation. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at his daily press conference on Thursday, had repeatedly refused to say that President Barack Obama still had confidence in Shinseki. On Friday, after meeting with Shinseki, the President said that he had, “with regret,” accepted his resignation, adding, “He does not want to be a distraction.”

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