On her Friday 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell joined fellow media liberals Stephen Colbert and Chris Matthews in labeling the VA scandal the first real scandal of the Obama administration: "...this is the biggest political problem that the President has faced. This is far more serious than a lot of so-called scandals that have popped up from time to time in the last couple of months." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
USA Today's Susan Page affirmed: "I totally agree with you, this is much more perilous for the President politically. Benghazi, they can dismiss that as a partisan battle. The Affordable Care Act, they can argue, 'This is actually going to work pretty well, just give us a little more time.'"
Page failed to make the obvious connection that the VA scandal demonstrates the failure of government-run health care and conveniently skipped over the IRS and NSA scandals.
She concluded: "I think this is a different issue – a different problem for the White House, a more serious one, and one that has really the potential to be a big problem for Democrats running in November."
Here is a transcript of the May 30 exchange:
12:13 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: And Susan Page, politically, this is the biggest political problem that the President has faced. This is far more serious than a lot of so-called scandals that have popped up from time to time in the last couple of months.
SUSAN PAGE [USA TODAY]: You know, I totally agree with you, this is much more perilous for the President politically. Benghazi, they can dismiss that as a partisan battle. The Affordable Care Act, they can argue, "This is actually going to work pretty well, just give us a little more time."
On this he had bipartisan outrage, including some pretty senior Democrats saying Shinseki had to go. I don't – I think we had Christi Parsons from the Chicago Tribune ask, "Why is this different from Kathleen Sebelius?" I think this is a different issue – a different problem for the White House, a more serious one, and one that has really the potential to be a big problem for Democrats running in November.
(...)
