Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Thursday that he didn’t think it was appropriate for Sarah Palin to link President’s Obama’s handling of the VA to the arrest of her veteran son.
Mrs. Palin’s son, Track, a 26-year-old Iraq veteran who suffers from PTSD, was arrested in Alaska Monday night on domestic violence charges following a dispute with his girlfriend. Stumping for Donald Trump in Tulsa on Wednesday, Mrs. Palin mentioned her son and blamed Mr. Obama for failing America’s veterans.
“I don’t know the details of it, but I do know that we have a problem of post-traumatic stress,” Mr. Bush said in a radio interview on “Kilmeade and Friends,” BuzzFeed reported. “It’s a serious problem and that the Veterans Administration needs to do a better job of creating centers of excellence to deal with veterans.”
“Our communities need to rise up to help veterans,” he continued. “We have homeless veterans, we have people that are suicidal and who have committed suicide. It’s a national tragedy, all of us I think have a responsibility to roll up our sleeves — I don’t think blaming the president is appropriate.”
The former Florida governor did say, however, that it’s fair to blame Mr. Obama for the “dysfunction” at the VA.
“You can blame the president for the dysfunction of the Department of Veterans Affairs, where they are giving out bonuses totaling $140 million,” Mr. Bush said. “And included in that are bonuses for people that reduced workloads or the wait list for veterans, but they didn’t give veterans care and veterans died, that’s a scandal. That I think we all can say is the responsibility of the president. This president doesn’t run to the fire, he doesn’t run to the problem. He runs away. He blames somebody else.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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