We Will Not Forget

            "It's Over."  So read newspaper headlines after the president signed the bill to end  the government shutdown and extend the debt ceiling.  Everybody shakes hands.  It's all behind us now, so let's forgive and forget.  Really?  Not so fast. 

            Will we forget the vicious name-calling, like White House aide Dan Pfeiffer comparing tea party members to jihadists, "people with a bomb strapped to their chest"? 
            Will we forget HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius assuring us that all was well with the opening of ObamaCare exchanges, when it was clear that it was an enormous disaster?   
            Will we forget the image of a clueless Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel showing up for the first time ever to receive caskets returning from Afghanistan, when his department had announced that it would not pay death benefits to the families of the dead soldiers? 
            Will we forget National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis squirming before a congressional committee and saying he couldn't remember the name of the person he talked to at the White House who told him to prevent public access to national parks and the Washington Mall?  
            Will we forget the guard who admitted, "We're just following orders.  We were told to make it as painful as possible."? 
            For me, the most indelible image is of the veteran with tears running down his cheeks, not in sadness or sorrow, but in anger and frustration at President Obama for dishonoring the men who fought and died for this country by preventing veterans from  visiting the WW II Memorial.  Behind him were men and women depositing the Mall's metal barricades at the White House fence.  In the spirit of Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall, they rejected Obama's insult, shouting, "Take Down These Barricades."
            It's not over.  We will not forget.