Five Times Obama Officials Expressed Outrage at Their Own Incompetence

On Thursday, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki told a Senate committee that he was “mad at hell” after hearing of allegations that the VA had been falsifying waiting lists for patients and that some 40 veterans had died as a result. 

White House press secretary Jay Carney quickly ran to the press to inform them that President Obama was “concerned and angry” over the allegations.  White House chief of staff Denis McDonough went even further:

The fact of these deaths is an outrage to the president. He’s made that clear. And you heard what General Shinseki had to say today. He’s mad as hell about this. Nobody is more mad than the president. And I have the scars to show it, given his reaction to it as he and I have talked about it.

President Obama and members of his administration constantly express rage and anger over events totally within their control. It’s an odd and unsettling fact of American life that so many Americans seem to think that such expressions of frustration should substitute for actual competence.

Here, then, are the top five times that Obama officials have expressed outrage, sadness, and anger over actions within their purview:

Benghazi: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was tasked with ensuring the security of her staff across the world – and she failed miserably at that task, leaving Americans vulnerable to terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Just a few minutes before exclaiming that it made no difference why those Americans were killed, Hillary expressed her upset over the incident:

I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.

Then she convened a commission which did not interview her. We still don’t know where she was during the attacks, or why she didn’t greenlight security or request military intervention.

IRS: Upon learning of the IRS’ targeting of conservative non-profit applicants – apparently from the news reports of it – Obama expressed outrage, according to White House press secretary Jay Carney. “I mean,” Carney said, “nobody’s been more outraged by the reported conduct here than the president of the United States.” Obama then said, “It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it.” A few weeks later, Obama would call the IRS scandal “phony.”

Secret Service Prostitution: Upon finding out about allegations that Secret Service members obtained prostitutes in Colombia, Obama said, “Of course I’ll be angry.”

Fast and Furious: In October 2011, after revelations broke that Obama’s Justice Department had greenlit an operation to smuggle guns south of the border to Mexican drug cartels, supposedly in an attempt to track gun pipelines, Obama stated, “It’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen. And we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.”

Obamacare Launch Failure: When the Obamacare rollout imploded, White House press secretary Jay Carney explained that Obama was “not happy” with the rollout. He added, “The accountability the president seeks today is the accountability that comes from those who are working on implementation.”

So, when our top-level politicians claim to be supremely angry about their own departments and minions victimizing Americans, are we supposed to give a crap? They obviously don’t, which is why they think it’ll be good enough to simply express their outrage while continuing run roughshod over rights.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org.Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.