There are two especially sad aspects of former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki’s recent departure from that position. The first is his observation that “I can’t explain the lack of integrity among some of the leaders of our health care facilities. This is something I rarely encountered during my 38 years in uniform. I cannot defend it because it is indefensible. But I can take responsibility for it, and I do.” It’s not as if Shinseki couldn’t have known about that lack of integrity. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., repeatedly told him in the last two years that his own people weren’t telling him the truth, and numerous press reports in the Washington Examiner and elsewhere exposed widespread dereliction in the department.

They weren’t telling Shinseki the truth about why VA’s longstanding backlog of unfinished benefit claims from veterans and their families continued to grow despite assignment of more resources to shrink it. And they weren’t telling the truth about why waiting times for veterans seeking medical care steadily grew longer or the increased incidence of veterans dying as a result of those delays. Shinseki wasn’t told because too many VA executives feared that millions of dollars in employee bonuses would be lost if the truth ever became known in VA’s highest office.