Political Quotes

“Those responsible for what happened ought to be held accountable. Mr. Blair wants us to believe the muffed opinion was the result of a routine dispute between opposing auditors' judgments over evidence and a mere difference of opinion among auditors. True, it reflects an unresolved dispute between the audit team and management, and yes, that happened; however, there is a right way and a wrong way to resolve such conflicts. According to audit standards cited in the GAO report, the dispute should have been addressed, resolved, and documented in workpapers before the report was issued. It was not because the two opinions were irreconcilable. The team's disclaimer was based on evidence measured against standards documented in workpapers. Blair's so-called ``professional preference,'' by comparison, is none of these things. As the GAO's evidence gap suggests, Mr. Blair's opinion was hooked up to nothing. It was unsupported, and it was improper. So plain old common sense should have caused senior managers to realize that issuing the report with the opinion hanging fire was a senseless blunder. Doing it had one inevitable result: The opinion had no credibility, and that opinion had to go. True, the integrity of the Office of Inspector General audit process may be damaged, but the final outcome of this tangled mess may help clear the way for recovery. That recovery ought to lead us to being able to have clean audits not only of the Marine Corps but all of the four services.…”