Barack Obama’s Misplaced Priorities [Updated]

by John Hinderaker in Democrats, Federal Budget, Obama administration

 

I noted earlier tonight that today’s votes in the House on partial funding of government operations were political theater. But that doesn’t put them on the same degraded plane as the Obama administration’s barricading of national monuments to keep veterans from visiting them. Glenn Reynolds has the links. A group of veterans from Mississippi knocked down barriers around the World War II memorial that the administration erected to dramatize that the “shutdown” was in effect:

Due to the government shutdown, National Park Service police put up barriers preventing access. According to Leo Shane III, White House and Veterans Affairs reporter for Stars and Stripes, the veterans knocked over those barriers.

Glenn sums up the administration’s disgraceful behavior:

Putting up barriers around open outdoor monuments was dumb shutdown theater and they deserve to have it backfire on them.

Iowahawk gets the last word:

In short: the WH went out of their way to barricade an outdoor WWII memorial to WWII vets as a political stunt. Utterly obscene.

Barack Obama’s problem (one of them, anyway) is that he is so consumed by hatred for Republicans that it clouds his judgment. He is all politics, all the time, as he showed again today in his over the top rant at the White House. Michael Ramirez aptly sums up Obama’s view of the world:

All of which raises some hope that, despite Republican errors, the Democrats may overplay their hand.

UPDATE: More on today’s incident at the World War II memorial:

Many elderly veterans, some in wheelchairs, broke through the barriers set up around the memorial, as police, park service employees, and tourists looked on.
“The Germans and the Japanese couldn’t contain us. They weren’t going to let barriers contain them today. They wanted to see their memorial,” says Armstrong.
Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio has a trip scheduled to depart from Toledo next Wednesday, October 9.
“We will make the call this Friday to determine if the flight is still a go, or if we will have to re-schedule,” Armstrong explains.
He says they are considering going ahead with the trip even if the government is still on shutdown, but when he called the parks service, he was told they would face arrest.
Armstrong says, “I said, are you kidding me? You’re going to arrest a 90/91-year-old veteran from seeing his memorial? If it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be there. She said, ‘That’s correct sir.’”
When he asked for her name, he says she did not give it to him and then promptly hung up the phone.

And that woman is classified as an “essential” federal employee! Maybe some more layoffs are in order.

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/10/barack-obamas-misplaced-priorities.php