President "Save Only One Child" Kills the Amber Alert...For the Children

There were people who expected Barack Obama to be the Presidential equivalent of the Second Coming. (And probably a few who thought he might be the actual Second Coming.) They called him things like "the post-racial President," which presumably meant more than "a President with a different racial identity than all those who came before him." They thought he would bring the end to partisan bickering and sniping, and usher in an era of peace, prosperity, international cooperation, and an unemployment rate under 5%.

There were people who believed that Barack Obama really was in it "for the children." Even though he voted against the "Born Alive Act." More than once. Even though he referred to an unplanned pregnancy as a "punishment." There were even people who, after all of that, believed Barack Obama when he said, "If we can even save one child, we have a responsibility to act."

In a surprising twist of irony, it has taken a shutdown of the government to bring some transparency to the Administration that has claimed transparency since it's beginning.

Over the last few days, the shutdown has forced the closing of several departments of the federal government, the shuttering of National Parks and monuments, and the indefinite furlough of thousands of federal workers. What has been illuminating is which departments have borne the bulk of the weight of the shutdown.

Take the national monuments, for example: many of them are open air structures that require little (if any) maintenance or staff. The money being spent to barricade them and prevent citizens from visiting is more than would ever be spent in keeping them up. Some of the campgrounds and other services on federal land even exist solely as revenue sources for the federal government. Paying to have them closed off not only costs taxpayer money for guards and barricades, but stops the influx of rent monies from these entities.

Civilian chaplains who contract their service to the military have been furloughed, and been threatened with arrest should they perform mass on a volunteer basis. ESPN service to deployed troops has also been suspended.

And now President "save only one child" has allowed the Justice Department to shut down the Amber Alert. Apparently responsibility can be suspended when you're fighting with Republicans.