House Republicans Hold Hearing on Why Their Shutdown Shut Things Down - Mirror
from MoJones:
. . . Even as House Republicans were capitulating on the demands that had precipitated this standoff, they were convening a hearing to get to the bottom of why the National Park Service had shuttered the memorials on the National Mall, hauling NPS director Jonathan Jarvis before the committees on oversight and natural resources in an effort to portray the closures as a politically motivated effort to turn up the heat on the GOP.
"I regret that Jarvis would not come voluntarily and had to be subpoenaed and served by a US Marshal," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), sounding almost as if he meant it.
For 15 days, Republicans have tried to turn Jarvis into the villain of the shutdown by highlighting the closure of popular sites like the WWII memorial. He was the lead player in this right-wing conspiracy theory, in which Obama had supposedly forced parks and memorials to close to make the GOP-cased shutdown appear worse than it really was. On Saturday, hundreds of veterans demonstrated against the closure of this site on the National Mall, joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. At the time, conservatives hailed the protest as a game-changer in the public relations war. And apparently they still do.
At the hearing, Rep. Doc Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, alleged that the monument closures were indeed "an attempt to make the shutdown as painful and as visible as possible" and their reopening was "an attempt to squash the ensuing bad PR . . ."
Midway through his opening remarks, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, held up a small blue-edged hand mirror. "If those Republican colleagues will look look at me, I will show you who's responsible." Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)—who recently called on the "four branches of government" to work together—stood up from his chair on the far side of his room and stared blankly in DeFazio's direction, then sat down. Most of his colleagues kept their focus straight ahead . . .
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