Senator’s Remarks Raise Hackles

Shortly before former VA Secretary Erik K. Shinseki resigned, several veterans’ service organizations took sharp exception to statements by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., which implied that the groups have a longstanding history of complicity with allegations of ineptitude at the beleaguered agency. “Your allegations are ugly and mean-spirited in every sense of the words and are profoundly wrong,” said Veterans of Foreign Wars adjutant general John E. Hamilton and commander in chief William A. Thien in an open letter to Burr, who serves as ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “Regrettably, Senator Burr shows no interest in pursuing serious policy solutions, preferring instead to launch cheap political attacks on the integrity of leaders of veterans organizations who do not agree with him, all of whom served honorably to defend this nation,” the Disabled American Veterans said in a statement on its Web site. For his part, Burr remained unapologetic. “The reaction from some veteran service organizations … seems to prove my point: Their National leadership are far more outraged by my words than they have been about the VA scandal or Secretary Shinseki’s mismanagement of the agency,” Burr said in an email statement to Politico, the online news organization.