Today’s blog focuses on current events at the highest levels of our Federal Government, as presented by investigative journalist Bill Moyers, former Senator George McGovern, and America’s modern day Nicolo Machiavelli, Karl Rove.

Moyers: Last night's PBS documentary on how the press aided and abetted George Bush with starting his failed Iraq War was a masterpiece.  While there was nothing new for VCS (see our March 10, 2003 letter), there might be something there for people who still think the Iraq War was a good idea.

Please consider ordering the DVD from PBS, "Buying the War," and showing it to your friends.  The bottom line is that our Constitution says the people run this country, and we need to hold both the administration and the press accountable for the outrageous misrepresentations that led to the deepening quagmire in the Middle East.

McGovern: This morning's Austin American Statesman newspaper carried a fantastic editorial column by a highly decorated World War II bomber pilot critical of the nonsense spouted by Vice President Dick Cheney about how wonderful the Bush/Cheney fiasco is going in Iraq.

In my humble opinion as a Gulf War veteran, if the press and Congress were doing their job properly, then portions of McGovern's superb column should have been printed in October 2002, before Bush's headlong rush to start his war.

Machiavelli: And today's Washington Post carried this disturbing news: George Bush and Karl Rove are using the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist partisan candidates in the 2008 elections.  This is an abuse of government power.  It is disgusting and outrageous and illegal.

Veterans and taxpayers have a right to know the facts about these illegal activities within VA.  Who attended these partisan briefings?  What allocations of VA assets, VA contracts or VA personnel decisions were improperly influenced by Karl Rove’s violation of the Hatch Act on behalf on his political party?

VCS Response: Veterans for Common Sense issued this statement regarding the illegal campaign activities going on at VA -

We are a Nation at war, yet Karl Rove and Jim Nicholson have tainted VA’s reputation by using government agencies for partisan political purposes.  Bush and Rove must immediately stop using VA to for any partisan advantage. 

Nicholson, the former head of the Republican Party with no experience on veterans’ issues before being named to lead VA, must publicly explain VA’s outrageous violations of the Hatch Act – an important law that prohibits election campaigning by Federal employees in government buildings during work hours.

VA political appointees are ignoring their responsibilities to taxpayers as well as to veterans and their families while the crisis at VA worsens. Under Nicholson, hundreds of thousands of veterans are waiting longer to obtain disability payments, and suicidal Iraq combat veterans are being turned away from VA hospitals while top VA political appointees attend highly partisan briefings.

Congress should immediately investigate VA to determine if Rove-inspired partisan politics played any role in decisions that may have impacted the delivery of prompt and high-quality medical care or benefits to our Nation’s 25 million veterans.

Sound off.  Should Bush, Cheney and Rove use VA for partisan political purposes?