Is the VA mess a scandal? For Obama, not really. Aside from the fact that his minions have already blamed George W. Bush (in the formulaic style of the elder Cato, who for a time ended every speech with the line “Carthago delenda est”), Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent progressives have also scapegoated the military-industrial complex along the following lines: Going to unnecessary wars means lots of wounded veterans, and having lots of wounded veterans overtaxes a once-noble system of health care, and so this is what you get when you go to a Bush war. Did anyone really believe that Obama would hold responsible scores of unionized and unaccountable GS employees and their politically appointed directors — much less the corrupt system that begat them?