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Chris Matthews: Obama Showed ‘Lack of Alertness’ on VA, Obamacare

MSNBC host Chris Matthews picked up the rant he started last night against President Obama Friday following the resignation of V.A. Secretary Eric Shinseki.

The Hardball host ripped the administration on Thursday for failing to take swifter action to address the V.A. scandal.

PBS reporter Christi Parsons asked the president during today's V.A. press conference why he rejected former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's resignation following the healthcare.gov debacle but accepted Shinseki's.

Obama argued the problems with healthcare.gov were more discreet than the problems at the V.A.

"Did the president do a good job of explaining the difference in not accepting the resignation of Kathleen Sebelius, but accepting the resignation of Shinseki?" anchor Tamron Hall asked Matthews.

"No, that wasn't a clear distinction and in fact I think this has an echo unfortunately for the president of his own behavior," Matthews said. "He was not alert of the problems of the rollout on his major piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act. And he let it go all of those months until we actually had the catastrophe."

The MSNBC host argued Obama's record of slowly responding to scandals is out of step with what the American people expect from their chief executive.

"We all feel for General Shinseki, but what about the guy waiting right now for a doctor, who is waiting three or four months, who may have lost a limb? Who may have had an infection, who may really need help with something?"