This morning, Brian Ward and I recorded a podcast with John Ondrasik (Five For Fighting) as our guest. After finishing the podcast, John went for a run in Washington, D.C. He ran down the Mall and stopped long enough to take pictures at some of the monuments, which he put up on his Twitter feed. The administration is still trying to barrycade the WWII memorial, but they aren’t stopping the vets:
The Lincoln Memorial is blocked off with yellow crime scene tape:
John tweeted: “I have a feeling if Mr. Lincoln were President I could walk up these steps.”
He came across this sign…
Hmmm…It’s almost like this sign was constructed as a photo op…Love the SHUTDOWN in CAPS.
From there he continued on to the Jefferson Memorial. There was a sign saying the Memorial was closed, but he climbed the stairs anyway, and encountered more yellow tape:
This brought an angry guard out to confront John. Note how John has protected the guard’s identity; I’m not sure, actually, that he deserves anonymity:
The guard gave John the bum’s rush. John tweeted: “This [photo] is where he grabbed my shoulder and started pushing me down the stairs.”
The irony of an American citizen being chased away from a memorial to Thomas Jefferson because, well, you can’t visit monuments when our government is 17% shut down, is almost too much. But consider the significance of the fact that a guard was present. That expense was being incurred, just as if the memorial were open; so why did it need to be closed? The difference was that instead of being there to provide security, the guard’s role was to chase away any visitors who were bold enough to ignore the signs and the yellow tape.
All of which is more evidence that the Obama administration is engaged in a massive charade to hype the damage allegedly done by the partial shutdown. It corroborates the Park Service ranger quoted by the Washington Times who said, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”