From al-AP via Yahoo!News:
WASHINGTON - A federal commission voted to close the crown jewel of Army hospitals as it began its second day of decision-making on sweeping plans to restructure military bases across the country. Located in the nation's capital, century-old Walter Reed Army Medical Center has treated presidents and foreign leaders as well as veterans and soldiers, including those returning from the Iraq war.
This is the paragraph that appears when you click on the headline. My God! They are going to shut down the Nation's no.1 Hospital for the Troops! Darn that Bush! What an evil guy! And look, there is some evil Paul Wolfowitz type looking at documents, it must be the JOOOOS, right liberals?
Here, as Paul Harvey likes to say, is the rest of the story, buried in the text of the full article. How typical of the MSM:
Most of Walter Reed's work would be relocated to a more modern, expanded hospital in Bethesda, Md., that will be renamed Walter Reed in a nod to the old facility's heritage.
Well, that must be all well and good for the wounded Abu Gharib torturers, comes the liberal response--but what about the lost jobs and workers? Again, buried in the piece, comes the answer:
Under the Walter Reed plan, most of the staff and services would move from the old hospital's main post to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, to create the expanded facility. The remaining personnel and operations would move to a community hospital at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
Isn't it funny how nowhere in the headline, nowhere in the teaser paragraph of the story, does it say anything about the closing and relocation actually being an upgrade. Hmm, interesting how the MSM chose to frame it, isn't it?
Here is the last word, what should really matter, by the deciding panel's chief:
"Kids coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, all of them in harm's way, deserve to come back to 21st-century medical care," Commission Chairman Anthony Principi said Thursday, adding that the hospital is old. "It needs to be modernized."
One-time costs, including construction and renovations, would total $989 million. The Pentagon would save $301 million over 20 years, the commission said. The current hospital has about 185 beds, but the expanded facility would have 340.
Wow, upgrading, and at lower costs than renovation. Must make the libs squirm.
