The Embarrassed Republican: Who closed this memorial?

I think the best story to come out about the “shutdown” concerns the chairman of the House’s Government reform and oversight committee’s investigation into the recent closing of the World War 2 memorial in Washington.  Chairman Darell Issa’s office is “looking into the matter” and promises a thorough investigation.  Really.

How disconnected from reality do you have to be to launch an investigation into the closing of government facilities when the government is shutdown?  I was curious as to what particular stance our own Congressman, Rodney Frelinghuysen was taking during this time.  After all, Rodney is not from a district where he’s under threat from hyper-conservatives who will leave no dollar unspent to destroy his credibility.  At least I don’t think so. However, as I suspected Rodney is firmly towing the current party line of “this is a liberal shutdown” and he calls upon the President to get back to work and negotiate.

Not going to happen, and if you’re smart Rodney you should be looking for an exit strategy from this train wreck.  It’s time for all good and sensible Republicans to pass the Clean CR (Continuing Resolution).  The President is not going to crack on this one, neither is the Senate.

Even casual observers have noted that the President is moving towards re-adjusting the precepts and expectations of his office.  Instead of blasting the heck out of Syria as he and his predecessors might well have done before, he went to congress instead.  Which of course made them scramble for the doors.  He has also declared that he’s not going to step in with something extraordinary to resolve the current spending shutdown.  He doesn’t want to set that kind of precedent.  He wants Congress to fix this.  It is, after all, their prime function.

The President would like to stop the lurching from one manufactured crisis to another, wall street would like that as well.  Although, the markets have not been hurt as much as many predicted, however, it’s still early in October.  Plenty of time for a rating agency or two to announce a downgrade.  If Congress does get it’s act together that would be an amazingly positive sign and be good for everyone.  Sooner or later they will, now it’s just a matter of how much grief and damage will ensue first.

For the rest of us it’s important that the President not relent.  We don’t want a system that lets a minority rule by threat.  That’s not good for Republicans or Democrats now or in the future.  The US doesn’t negotiate with terrorists no matter what the threat and we shouldn’t negotiate with minority Congressional groups no matter how well-intentioned or dire the consequences.  It’s just as bad to let one house of Congress pass only the spending measures they feel are appropriate during this time.  That’s effectively re-legislating established programs under duress.  If they want to repeal something, do it, but do it without tying it to the entire government’s budget.  No one should negotiate on those terms.

No matter how many times Republicans say this is a “Liberal” shutdown someone is always going to hold up the letter from Congressman Meadows, signed by 80 Republican lawmakers declaring that shutting down the government to defund the PPACA (Obamacare) is their intention.  The good news for us is, as far as I can tell, Congressman Frelinghuysen didn’t sign it.  Good for you Rodney.

You can see the letter here:

http://media.timesfreepress.com/news/documents/2013/10/03/Meadows_DefundLetter.pdf

Prentiss Gray is a 30 year Morris Township resident, qualifying him only as a “long term visitor” to this historic area.  He writes professionally as a freelancer for Gannett in the Domesti-tech blog and makes frequent contributions to Speak Without Interruption, an international on-line magazine.  He also writes and edits travel and historical journals.