People first noticed what the NPS was up to when the World War II Memorial on the National Mall was “closed.” Just to be clear, the memorial is an open plaza. There is nothing to operate. Sometimes there might be a ranger standing around. But he’s not collecting tickets or opening gates. Putting up barricades and posting guards to “close” the World War II Memorial takes more resources and manpower than “keeping it open.”
No question. What happened at the World War II Memorial was pure political exploitation. As I wrote here earlier this week, for the propaganda artist, the spectacle of elderly, heartbroken, wheelchair-bound vets voyaging thousands of miles to remember their fallen brothers, maybe for a final earthly time, only to be denied by cruel, intransigent Republicans, was apparently too lovely to pass up. What great political theater! The propaganda points for the White House and its lieutenants must have been irresistible.
One can’t help notice the irony of a White House that can’t build a border fence but in mere hours can barricade the World War II Memorial and seemingly every other historic site in the nation.
Indeed, as the Standard noted, the barricading of the World War II Memorial was “just the start of the Park Service’s partisan assault on the citizenry.” It noted other historical sites that are privately owned and operated, where “the Park Service doesn’t actually do anything.” Nonetheless, the Park Service mustered the resources to deploy officers to forcibly remove volunteer workers and visitors. As the Standard put it, the Park Service “is now in the business of forcing parks they don’t administer to close…. It’s one thing for politicians to play shutdown theater. It’s another thing entirely for a civil bureaucracy entrusted with the privilege of caring for our national heritage to wage war against the citizenry on behalf of a political party. This is how deep the politicization of Barack Obama’s administration goes.”.........................
I tend to agree with Kengor. This is probably one of the most overtly cruel and vicious things Obama has done yet. And the target was carefully picked: average Americans, the type of people Obama hates with a passion and to whom he wants to demonstrate his power and to intimidate.
Another thing he has done is destroy and corrupt one of the few federal things that was viewed favorably by most people, the National Park system and it’s employees. I went to the Grand Canyon this summer and has a wonderful time, and I particularly liked the ranger talks. But I honestly don’t think I’ll ever feel the same way again about either the parks or the rangers. Now it all seems to me like a symbol of cruelty and oppression, the magnificence rendered small and ugly and ominous by the petty, vindictive cruelty of a dictator.
Too right, and thanks for posting great article and comments!