At the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer offered commentary on the cause of the mass shooting at Fort Hood: “That doctor [Major Nidal Hasan] should not have been at Fort Hood. I don’t care how hard-up the Army is for mental health professionals....sadly, this shows the Army still does not take protecting soldiers’ mental health as seriously as it does training them to shoot.”
Schieffer went on to argue: “And then there is the other part that often happens in government. Don’t deal with the problem, shuffle it off to somewhere else. When he had problems at Walter Reed hospital, the doctor was just packed off to Fort Hood.” In similar fashion, Schieffer “shuffled off” the responsibility of an overly politically correct media that continually denounces profiling of criminal suspects or terrorists.
Earlier in the broadcast, Schieffer asked Congressman Ike Skelton: “Do you think this is a sign that the military is simply overextended?”
Speaking to Senator Lindsey Graham, Schieffer referred to Hasan’s Islamic extremism, but countered: “Islam doesn’t have a majority – or the Christian religion has its full, you know, full helping of nuts too.”
Here is a full transcript of Schieffer’s commentary:
10:55AM
SCHIEFFER: Finally today, the President has asked the nation not to jump to conclusions about what happened at Fort Hood, which is usually good advice, but it’s also what government officials generally say when the government fouls up.
Good advice or not, I am jumping to an obvious conclusion. This should not have happened. That doctor should not have been at Fort Hood. I don’t care how hard-up the Army is for mental health professionals. A government psychiatrist with bad performance ratings who has been trying to get out of the Army and who had been saying what Dr. Hasan had been saying about the war on terrorism should not have been shipped off to Fort Hood to give grief counseling.
What do you suppose he was telling the soldiers? That after what they had done, they ought to feel bad?
Certainly no officer with his record would have been allowed to lead soldiers into combat. But sadly, this shows the Army still does not take protecting soldiers’ mental health as seriously as it does training them to shoot.
And then there is the other part that often happens in government. Don’t deal with the problem, shuffle it off to somewhere else. When he had problems at Walter Reed hospital, the doctor was just packed off to Fort Hood.
Investigators confirm now that someone by his name had been posting messages on the Internet about how suicide bombers are as heroic as American soldiers who fall on grenades to save their comrades. But the investigators say it is not clear if Dr. Hasan actually wrote those messages. Based on what we found out so far, my question is, do you suppose anyone has even asked him?
