"Look, Rep. Paul Broun, we've already decided that Texas Republican Louie Gohmert is America's Dumbest Congressman. You don't have to keep trying so hard.
"There was absolutely no reason, whatsoever, for this administration to block access to the World War Two Memorial or the Lincoln Memorial. It's never ever been done in a government shutdown prior to this administration doing so."There are at least two problems with this.
1. The Lincoln Memorial was indeed closed during a previous government shutdown in 1995. That one was also caused by Republicans trying to extract concessions from a Democratic president. Broun should remember it well, since he ran for Congress the following year. (He lost.)
2. The World War II Memorial was completed in 2004, and so did not exist during any previous shutdowns. While this renders Broun's statement technically true, it is true in the same way as saying "Abraham Lincoln never dined at Chipotle" is true. Neither statement makes a particularly intriguing point.
Paul Broun is running for the U.S. Senate this time around, possibly because Paul Broun has been running for things for over 20 years and is bored with being a mere congressman. He is also known for being the congressman who thinks evolution, embryology and the Big Bang Theory are lies from the pit of Hell. Observing that monuments were never closed during time periods in which they did not exist is precisely the level of insight Mr. Broun typically brings to conversations; observing things that are flatly and provably untrue is just the usual conservative model for pandering to the base."
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