The Patriot Post® · Phony Shutdown Pain

Once the government shut down Monday at midnight, the Obama administration went into overdrive to make the “Republican shutdown” as noticeable and inconvenient as possible. National Parks were one of the more visible targets, though many of these remained open during the shutdowns in the 1990s.

Obama had Park Service personnel place Barackades at the World War II Memorial in Washington, though that didn’t stop hundreds of veterans from visiting anyway. Just for good measure, Obama also closed the cemetery at Normandy in France. And he tried to blockade Mount Vernon, which is privately owned. That didn’t work out so well.

Even the football game between the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy was in jeopardy of being canceled. Fortunately, however, sanity prevailed late Wednesday night given that the athletics programs of both schools are privately funded and don’t rely on government money. “We could run our entire athletics program and conduct events as we always do without any government funds,” said Naval Academy Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk.

Clearly, the White House thought the public would blame the GOP for these ridiculous closings. In order for Obama to beat his Republican enemies – the ones his aide called terrorists “with a bomb strapped to their chest” – his administration is authorizing high profile cuts to create as much public pain as possible. But it’s the Democrats who look bad here.

Meanwhile, Obama doesn’t share the pain. Even as the grocery stores on U.S. Army bases are closed, imposing a significant inconvenience on active duty military personnel and their families, the president’s beloved golf course at nearby Andrews Air Force base remains open. And though Obama has issued a moratorium on National Cemetery flyovers to honor fallen warriors, he continues to use Air Force One and its entire contingent of additional Air Force aircraft and support crews to commute to political fundraisers, stump speeches and vacations, at enormous expense. It’s not that we think Obama should book his flights on Expedia, but the fact that the commander in chief continues to use this most costly Air Force asset for purely political or pleasure trips while closing down memorials, cemeteries and grocery stores is disgraceful.