Meet Anne McLeod

Walter Reed is a mess. But everyone is focusing on the wrong mess.

Mold and mildew can be cleaned up. Stained carpets can be replaced. Walls can be painted and structures can be repaired.

But abuse and neglect...That is not so easy to whitewash.

The crass and craven perfidy is staggering in it's scope. Last week, I was very close to flabbergasted when I heard Secretary Harvey state that he hoped the Washington Post was satisfied, having managed to "ruin some careers." (A few decades of being affiliated with the military has made me not so easy to knock over with a feather when I hear of an outrage, if you know what I mean.)

I wanted to go through the radio and do an injury to the feckless, cowardly mother fucker.

But today, someone else (without my penchant for rhetorically dousing offenders with gasoline and tossing a match on 'em then busting out the s'mores fixin's) delivered a body blow to Harvey that should have knocked the wind out of all the upper brass. Sometimes a defter touch is demanded. Anne McLeod, wife of an injured Iraq War National Guard Soldier had the right tone, timbre and inflection.

The thing of the matter is, Mr. Harvey made a statement the other day that really bothers me. He said he hopes the Washington Post was satisfied because they ruined careers. First, let me come on record by saying, I don’t care about your career as far as anybody that’s in danger. That doesn’t bother me. All I’m just trying to do is have my life, the life that I had and that I know. My life was ripped apart the day my husband was injured, and having to live through the mess that we lived through at Walter Reed has been worse than anything I have ever sacrificed in my life.

Go to Think Progress to watch video of her testimony.

I dare you to watch it and not tear up, even if you have never had any connection to the military.

This is a topic that is not going away. So let's take a page out of the right's playbook, as written by Frank Luntz. When this subject comes up, use these words in framing the debate:

• Abuse
• Neglect
• Suffering
• Cruel
• Heartbreaking
• Disgraceful
• Depraved indifference
• Families
• Inhuman treatment
• Perfidy
  

Those words focus the debate where it belongs:

On beings, not buildings.