Veterans Break the Obama Blockade
By Matthew Vadum
Thousands of World War Two veterans fed up with President Obama’s needlessly cruel closure of national shrines in order to put pressure on his political enemies, yesterday stormed the cordoned-off open-air Washington, D.C., memorial that was created to honor them.
In a touching moment that ought to warm every red-blooded patriots’ heart, nonviolent protesters removed barricades on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., erected by the National Park Service to keep veterans and other members of the public from enjoying the National World War Two memorial that was built with private funding.
In the middle of the day veterans carried some of the “barrycades,” or “barackcades,” as some are calling the metal hurdles used as barriers, a few blocks away to the White House to register their disgust with the petty-tyrant ways of President Obama.
Although many of the flag-carrying veterans were octogenarians who came to the demonstration in wheelchairs, they were met with a massive show of force by baton-wielding local police.
This was quite unlike the treatment afforded left-wing pro-immigration amnesty protesters whose demonstration on the National Mall last week authorities bent over backwards to accommodate. Police even let the activists erect a stage in the area that was supposed to be off-limits to the general public.
In an incident staged for the media, eight socialist pro-open borders members of the U.S. House of Representatives acted out last week in order to make police arrest them for disorderly conduct. Democratic lawmakers arrested included the usual suspects such as Islamist ally Keith Ellison (Minn.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), Charles Rangel (N.Y.), and John Lewis (Ga.).
After police massed Sunday to intimidate the assembled veterans, actor James Woods seemed to speak for normal Americans who are aghast at Obama’s tactics as he does petty, irritating things like shutting down national parks, scenic lookouts on highways, and bicycle paths in order to rankle voters in the hope they’ll project blame for the ongoing government shutdown onto Republicans.
Woods tweeted sarcastically, “Thank God we have baton wielding riot police to protect us from 85 [year] old vets in wheelchairs. Thanks, Mr. Obama.”
Some prominent Republicans showed up at the protest to address the crowd.
“This is the people’s memorial,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said veterans won’t be bullied into silence.
“Veterans have proven they are not timid. And we will not be timid in calling out anybody that uses the military as pawns,” Palin said. “We can only be America, home of the free, if we are America, home of the brave.”
Protesters chanting “U-S-A.” and “Tear down these walls” denounced Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.
“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” the organizers of the rally said in a statement.
“And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”
One speaker urged urged President Obama to “put the Koran down.” While politically incorrect, the comment isn’t entirely off the mark given how Barack Hussein Obama has gone out of his way to accommodate and help advance Islamic theocratic totalitarianism, even aiding the terrorist group al-Qaeda that killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.
Almost on cue, CNN tried to portray the veterans as kooks and fringe-dwelling lunatics and downplayed the size of the veterans’ gathering. The cable TV network’s website reported:
“The rally, billed as the ‘Million Vet March on the Memorials,’ drew far fewer than a million people and evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience.”
CNN focused on misbehaving people in the crowd, noting one protester shouted that Obama was a “punk” and that several carried “Impeach Obama” signs. Another sign that seemed to be directed toward Republicans, read “You can’t be a conservative and a pussy too.”
As Ben Shapiro observed, “CNN never covered Occupy Wall Street or the ‘Million Muslim March’ on September 11 in such fashion.”
Shapiro is right.
And during the ongoing shutdown saga, there was no media outrage when Obama likened Republicans to arsonists, falsely claiming GOP lawmakers were unwilling to compromise with his side on funding the federal government.
It is unreasonable, Obama lectured, for Republicans to say, “If you don’t give me the price, I’m going to burn down your house.”
There was no media outrage when Obama mouthpiece Dan Pfeiffer called Republicans suicide bombers and compared them to arsonists and kidnappers.
“We are for cutting spending, we are for reforming our tax code, we are for reforming entitlements,” Pfeiffer said. “But what we are not for is negotiating with people who have a bomb strapped to their chest.”
There was no media outrage when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) smeared Tea Party movement supporters, calling them “anarchists.”
There was no media outrage when Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) called Republicans traitors. “Your hate for this president is coming before the love of this country because if you love this country you would not be closing it down,” he said.
In the age of Obama, accusing Republicans –especially Tea Party supporters– of being violent sociopaths is a standard leftist smear. Tea Party rallies are orderly and peaceful, filled with decent, honest, hard-working Americans who pick up the trash.
By contrast, when the public defecators that constitute today’s Left get together people get mugged, murdered, and raped, as Occupy Wall Street showed the nation as it rapidly transformed protest sites into biohazardous disaster areas.
Yet the good guys on the side of limited government and fiscal responsibility get labeled “terrorists.”
Why?
Because the Tea Party, the right-wing populist movement sparked by Obama’s various transgressions, is an existential threat to the Left, so leftists are throwing every chunk of mud they can find.
To emotion-driven left-wingers, successful Republican tactics are by definition unfair. If the tactics are particularly effective, the progressive mind labels them terrorism.
Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky recognized this human foible to which leftists are particularly susceptible in his ninth rule of “the ethics of means and ends”: “[A]ny effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”
Obama’s serial shutdowns of public facilities is called the “Washington Monument Strategy.” The theory is that such minor annoyances amplify the consequences of budget cuts, or in this case, of the government shutdown. The goal is to force congressional Republicans to surrender their principles and agree to fund Obamacare and raise the national debt ceiling — and in the process look wimpy and lose the support of their grassroots.
Meanwhile, Obama has tendered yet another insult to America’s veterans and fallen military heroes. Arlington National Cemetery has been removing mementos such as photos and notes placed on the gravestones of more than 800 soldiers killed serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even our war dead can’t escape politics during Obama’s presidency.
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