Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald holds a chart as he testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald got defensive at a hearing on the agency’s budget Wednesday, snapping at one congressman who suggested he’d accomplished little in his first six months on the job.
“I ran a large company, sir, what have you done?” McDonald said to Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) in a heated exchange.
(For what it’s worth, Coffman founded a property-management firm and served as secretary of state and treasurer in Colorado. McDonald was CEO of Procter & Gamble.)
Coffman accused McDonald of “glossing over” the problems that still plague services for veterans. He said he thinks McDonald “will not have made a difference in changing the culture” by the end of the Obama administration.
He pressed McDonald about construction issues with a new VA hospital in his district. McDonald retorted that he’d only been in the job six months: “You’ve been here longer than I have — if there’s a problem in Denver, you own it more than I do.”
McDonald said he was offended by Coffman’s comments. He also offered the congressman access to his personal cellphone — he gave out his number when The Washington Post asked for it at a September news conference — so he could take calls from veterans and ask them whether he’s making a difference.
Coffman spokesman Tyler Sandberg sent us an e-mail noting that the congressman is a combat veteran who served in both Iraq wars.
“More to the point, Mike Coffman has been fighting for years to fix the failures of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but he can’t legislate leadership,” Sandberg said. “Notwithstanding Secretary McDonald’s obnoxious comments, Rep. Coffman is concerned that the Secretary will never fix the problems at the VA so long as he refuses to fully acknowledge that his organization continues to be dysfunctional at every level.”
Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, summed it up on Twitter: “Fireworks! There is a new sheriff in town. Sec McDonald is not taking any crap from Congress. Attack him at your own peril.”
A Camelot mystery solved
As a little girl, Caroline Kennedy played with a set of Japanese hina dolls that were sent to her father, our colleague Sarah Larimer reports.
But Kennedy, all grown up and now the U.S. ambassador to Japan, never knew the identity of the gift-giver. Until now.
In advance of a national doll festival in Japan in March, Kennedy has showcased the dolls in her Tokyo residence. This month, she told reporters she wanted to track down the sender and thank him or her for the gift.
Kyodo news agency reported Wednesday that Tsuyako Matsumoto, a Japanese woman who is now 92, sent the 15 dolls to President John F. Kennedy.
Matsumoto, a former grocer who now lives in a nursing home, told Kyodo that when she heard JFK’s daughter was looking for her, “my mind went blank. I’m simply happy.”
The Kennedy family received the dolls after Matsumoto sent a note to the president in 1962, according to the news agency’s report. His secretary responded.
She was so moved by the response, she bought a set of 15 hina dolls with money she’d saved from knitting and other odd jobs.
“I thought it would be a surprise because it was pricey and rare,” she told Kyodo.
Hina dolls traditionally are displayed for Girls’ Day every March 3 to bring health and happiness to daughters.
Matsumoto, who kept the 53-year-old letter from Washington, told the news agency she was “grateful” that Caroline Kennedy enjoyed the dolls as a child and is displaying them now. She said she’d like to meet the ambassador.
A Kyodo reporter asked what she would say during the interaction, to which Matsumoto replied,“That’s a secret.”
Those Kerry detours
We’ve been hearing complaints from the State Department press corps about Secretary John Kerry’s penchant for being dropped off at his home in Boston after a long trip overseas.
Usually the press corps then takes off for Washington, mostly just grumbling about the delay in their own arrivals home.
But the grumbling apparently turned to anger Sunday when Kerry stopped in Boston to see his newborn granddaughter.
This time, the dozen reporters who travel with him (the news organizations pay for their seats) first circled Logan Airport for half an hour, waiting for a runway to be cleared. The snow kept piling up as the press and staff waited on the plane for well over an hour for him to return, wondering when — or if — they were going to return that night.
Upon Kerry’s return, the plane took off, having been delayed, by some estimates, at least two hours.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was questioned about this at the daily Foggy Bottom briefing Wednesday.
“Who pays for that?” a reporter asked. “And do you have any estimate of how much, for instance, the layover in Boston cost on Sunday?”
She replied that she couldn’t speak immediately to the cost question but said Kerry has “followed the same precedent set by his predecessors, many of whom also didn’t live in Washington and had homes elsewhere.” So it’s “certainly not uncommon and far from without precedent” for officials to return to their home towns, she said.
Well, former secretaries Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright all lived in the D.C. area. Hillary Clinton alighted in New York a couple of times but stopped the practice after some negative media reports.
Psaki noted that Kerry stopped in Boston to see his ailing wife and “it was only appropriate that he went to visit his daughter,” who gave birth Friday.
“There are certainly a number of reasons why a plane stops. To refuel is often one of them,” she added.
The need to refuel was also cited a year ago when Kerry stopped in New York shortly after his first granddaughter was born. But that flight originated in Washington.
Must have a small fuel tank?
— With Colby Itkowitz
Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz
Colby Itkowitz is a national reporter for In The Loop.
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