Is *This* the Veterans Administration’s Solution to Its Own Poor Performance?

You really have to wonder what sort of world someone lives in that makes this make sense:

Last Tuesday night, [David Schultz, a reporter with Public Radio station WAMU] was covering a public event at the V.A. Hospital in Washington, D.C. While interviewing one of the veterans about the poor treatment he was receiving at the hands of the V.A., Ms. [Gloria] Hairston demanded that Schultz stop recording the interview and hand over his recording equipment.

“She said I wouldn’t be allowed to leave,” Schultz tells WTOP.

At first he refused. But after being surrounded by armed police officers who stood between him and the exit, he looked for a compromise.

“I became worried that I was going to get arrested,” Schultz says.

Schultz convinced Hairston that all she really needed to confiscate was the memory card to his recorder, rather than all of his equipment. While this was going on, many of the veterans from the meeting had come out to watch the confrontation.

One of those veterans, an amputee in a wheelchair, approached Schultz and asked him for his phone number.

“I started to give it to him and then the woman {Hairston} became irate, she said you can’t give him your phone number. You have to give me all of your equipment or I’m going to get ugly. She used the phrase ‘get ugly,'” Schultz says,

Like any good reporter, Schultz stood his ground and called his boss for direction. Longtime newsman Jim Asendio is the news director for WAMU.

“I told him to give them the flash card and get out of there,” Asendio says. “I didn’t want this to get out of hand.”

Schultz reluctantly handed over the memory card from his recorder.

This happened Tuesday.  So, by Friday, we’ve got a quick apology for a gross mistake, right?

Unfortunately, WAMU has been unsuccessful in retrieving the memory card which remains in the hands of the federal government.

“Our lawyers are working on that,” Asendio says.

On Thursday afternoon, Asendio hand-delivered a letter from WAMU’s general manager to the V.A Hospital demanding the return of the memory card. When he tried to deliver a copy of the letter to V.A. headquarters, he was turned away.

[ . . . ]

Hairston refused to answer any questions about the incident when reached by phone Thursday afternoon.

“I’m going to take your query and move it up the ladder,” she said. “I’m going to send it over to the central office.”

The central office is the V.A. headquarters. Calls and e-mails to Phil Budahn, director of media relations for the Department of Veterans Affairs, also went unreturned.

“I’m guessing nobody’s called you back,” was Budahn’s only comment when reached late Thursday.

Gloria Hairston needs to be fired.  And the Veterans Administration needs to take a hard look at both its public relations operation, as well as whoever it’s letting walk around armed inside its facilities.  It’s pretty obvious that some of them lack the judgment you’d want from someone with a gun.

Sarah Cox, a public affairs specialist at the hospital, was reluctant to answer any basic questions about Hairston including the correct spelling of her name or the length of her employment.