Secretary McDonald admitted he wrongly claimed to have served in US Special Operation Forces when he was in the Army.

A few thoughts:
- There are now several data points regarding lying among several senior or high visibility people (Hillary Clinton shot at in Bosnia, Brian Williams, Robert McDonald, others).
- Leads me to believe we are not looking at symptoms but rather a societal illness of some sort (overall morals, ethics, other).
- The excuse of "everyone does it" is a BS excuse. Try using this excuse on your parents sometime and I can tell you their standard responses.
- This is not a matter of a person needing to "watch what they say in public". It is easy. Tell the truth all the time and you don't need to remember what lies you told to whom.
- The argument that "only those who have never done 'X' can criticize" is also a BS argument. This is the equivalent of shouting down opposition or calling someone racist or a homophobe. The intent is to shut the person up who is criticizing or commenting rather than having to engage on what the person is saying in the first place.
- Just like in the killing of a person, not all lies are equal. For killings there are the degrees of murder, manslaughter, and justifiable homicide. For lies I would say there is stolen valor, attempts to obtain unearned benefits or get an unearned advantage, bar stories, and fish tales. There are others but hopefully the above gets my point across.

I may be a little biased in this as I look at it from a police officer's perspective. He has been caught in a lie. His credibility is shot. It is difficulty to hold an office of such high authority w/ the needed credibility it implies when you've been caught in a lie like this.

#douche

Saying he "FIRED" so many VA employees (upper level) and NOT doing it. Calling for a review board to determine weather or not to fire the Phoenix Director. Now this? TIME TO GO.

While I think this is a poor statement from a person in charge of the VA. Especially, from one who served in the Army, I don't think it is quite as bad as putting on a uniform/medals when you never served. I am in no way condoning it, but he was trying to connect with a homeless vet, and he was a Ranger and served in the 82nd which does often work with special forces. He has apologized and I think maybe we should give him a pass on this one.

I know that this is a sensitive topic with all of us and I would like to see all stolen valor infractions stopped, but I would also not appreciate my entire life recorded and every statement that I have ever made to anyone be checked for exactness. I am certainly not saying that I have ever committed a stolen valor act. I am pretty sure that I have not.

This is really a tough topic as we all hold this so near and dear. But, I am also concerned that if we hold our leaders to a perfect bar we will be left with no leaders. How can we figure out where that bar should be? Each one of us has to do that for himself. I can understand if some of us think he should be removed as the head of the VA. In this instance, I guess I am just so frustrated with the state of the VA and its past. I would like to see if he can accomplish anything positive for a change with the VA. Then we can hold him accountable if he fails.

We need to get this away from the bureaucracy and move it to something slightly more privatized. There is no incentive to do things properly and that will always lead to an inferior product.

CSM Michael Lynch

Do you know when, where, who, what, why, he was lying about his military service?

hehehehe don't get me wrong, this cat is a liberal and Republicans clothing, however there is no way in the world that I could have gone through the same Ranger training that he's done. Heck ha ha anybody who's done Ranger and above his special forces is by school of thought :-). I understand though what everybody's trying to get at

I will give the man credit for having served in the 82nd at least. That should have been a proud enough claim for any man.
I'm not a fan of Huffington Post either. Yellow journalism never appealed to me, but this time they seem to have gotten it right.
So now for the $64.00 question...... If Secretary McDonald will lie about his service when it gains him nothing of value, what does it do to his credibility when he reports on the status of his embattled department? He is charged with rectifying a medical system which has been likened to being a "dead pool" lottery game and he has the added complication of a national cemetery at Ft Bliss in El Paso which has been described as a "disgrace to the nation". It's going to be very difficult for me to place any degree of trust in anything he says for a very long time.

At least he admitted it and apologized. He also didn't repeat the story like Brian Williams.

The only downside is that right now everyone is looking to get anything from anyone.

Bill O'Reilly is under heat from comments he made. He is sticking to his guns though, want to see how it plays out.