Talk:Washington Monument syndrome

( 9March2012) Seems like the importance of this article is much greater now that the sequester is now in effect.

68.100.98.109 (talk) 05:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Congress firing someone?
(9 March 2012) "Congress fired Hartzog"    Can someone explain how Congress can fire someone? I understand how the Senate can refuse to confirm a nomination and how they can impeach the President. But how can they fire someone aside from blackmailing the President (by doing something like refusing to fund the National Park Service)?

68.100.98.109 (talk) 05:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I've only done a cursory search, but the results suggest that Hartzog's dismissal was unrelated to the Washington Monument issue. The biography on the National Parks Service website, and obituaries from the Washington Post and the New York Times claim that it was due to an incident involving a friend of the president. Here is the NYT's account of the episode:
 * In the summer of 1972, unbeknown to Mr. Hartzog, the superintendent of Biscayne National Park canceled a permit allowing Mr. Nixon’s friend Bebe Rebozo to dock his boat in the park. Mr. Rebozo complained to the president, who fired Mr. Hartzog.
 * “The interior secretary, Rogers Morton, went over to the White House and tried to talk him out of it,” Mr. Utley said. “Nixon refused.”
 * As an inexperienced editor, I'm not going to mess about with the article myself, but I would suggest that additional research and amendments to this article and the one one for Hartzog might be in order. Nuns (talk) 04:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Untitled
John Gardner's NRO article using the term is a good example and definition: I give you the lead paragraph:


 * There is an old Washington game locally known as "Washington Monument Syndrome." Suppose Congress decides to "cut" (i.e., reduce the rate of planned increase) funding for the National Park Service. The classic bureaucratic response is not to put a new program on hold or look for more efficient ways of doing things but rather to target the cut where it would be most visible, for instance by closing the Washington Monument. The result? Congress cancels the planned "cut" and spending is increased.

This term has been used in politics, especially on the center-right in the US since at least the Reagan administration.

It appeared in the Washington Times on 28 June 2002.

LAWeekly mentions it on 30 April 2008.

The tactic itself spans national, state, county, and municipal politics. I'm surprised there isn't an article on it already. Oh well, once more into the breach! TMLutas (talk) 04:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Years ago (in the mid-1980s) the New Republic had an article about this (triggered by the NPS's announcement that it would have to limit the Washington Monument's hours as a result of Gramm-Rudman-enforced budget cuts. But they called it the "Firemen First" syndrome. Might be worth looking up and using as a source. Daniel Case (talk) 16:11, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ --BDD (talk) 22:16, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProjectPolitics
Tag & Assess --Rosiestep (talk) 16:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

"Variations" of WMS
I reverted | this edit for a couple of reasons. First, I don't see what the edit has to do with WMS, as it's actually the reverse of it, not a variation.See [| WP:OFFTOPIC] for the relevant guideline. Also, the term "Congressmen Last" is unsourced and seems to be original research (WP:OR). Please cite your reasoning that this should be in the article before you re-add it. Ultra Venia (talk) 05:13, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed edits.
Because the article is locked I propose here the removal of the sentences "or a government shutdown." and "This is done to gain support for tax increases that the public would otherwise be against." as they both are unsupported opinions.

The government shutdown closes many things, both visible and not. As such the definition does not fit as they are required by law to be closed as non-essential, that these closures are more visible and made part of media attention then closures of more bureaucratic nature is inconsequential to the fact that the closures themselves are not by choice and don't fit the article.

The claim "This is done to gain support for tax increases that the public would otherwise be against." is simply unsubstantiated partisan opinion. The use of the phrase is about ways to counter budget cuts, not raising tax levels. They are not the same.

If there are sources found using the term for such uses, they then can be reinstated and the definition reworked, right now however they should be removed.Culculhen (talk) 12:05, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm just going to say right now that this is perhaps not the best time to be editing the document, considering the line being considered for editing is related to current substantially large political events. I'm a Wikipedia newbie so I am not certain if there is an applicable rule or guideline that relates to such issues of editing things related to current events. The concept is very easily recognizable as being relevant, though. 68.110.167.108 (talk) 01:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The proper method of challenging fact is to add a citation request tag and let it hang out for awhile. There's plenty of documentation out there by political professionals that this is, indeed, what is going on. Removal of material is what's done when nobody can substantiate the cite request after a reasonable period of time. Depending on how lively the community is, reasonable can be bigger or smaller. If somebody drops by to do an edit every three months, it's not reasonable to wait a week and then kill the text. The request is likely not going to be seen. On the other hand if a lot of people are looking at the page, the wait time can be shrunk down somewhat. The point is to put the cite request tag so people understand that there is a controversy there and then try to work it out. TMLutas (talk) 17:58, 4 October 2013 (UTC) Could someone remove/re-word the "This Obama administration innovation" line? That's some pretty biased language. Suzushiiro (talk) 18:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The whole paragraph seems very P.O.V. It just gives the Republican case without giving any other view points. It is simply declared to be an extension of this principle, without any mention that it is merely an allegation of such, made by partisans in the dispute and not universally acknowledged as such. There is no mention of the official standpoint regarding the closure.
 * The allegation of "in violation of the terms of their leases and concessions." is not supported by the cited (heavily partisan, biased) article at all. As it stand it's completely unfounded allegation of illegal wrongdoing. As such is has no place in this article. "facing daily civil disobedience actions" "old and dying" is extremely loaded as well. Especially since there have been declarations allowing such visits in the cited article. Combined with the already mentioned questionable statements in the main text the complete article seems very much in written from a POV. --Culculhen (talk) 20:17, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This is getting absurd. unsupported, likely false information is put in this article and then sourced as true by citing lazy journalists/bloggers who quote the unsupported wikipedia article. the bias of this article is beyond parody now.--Culculhen (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The Section on the 2013 shutdown is wrong claiming that monuments were not shutdown in the 1995 shutdown

This article has pictures and shows that most if not all the same parts of government were shutdown.

Thanks for taking a look at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.89.94.110 (talk) 17:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

This article has been marred by bias and should not be opining on an ongoing situation, namely, the government shutdown.
The subchapter on the 2013 government shutdown is clearly critical of the Obama administration, including citing rightwing media to support its claims. The article should probably cleaned up big time--it's sort of useless, when you think about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.166.107.71 (talk) 20:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC)


 * And the park service is specifically allowing the Honor Flight vets in; they're not committing civil disobedience by visiting. ( http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/world-war-ii-veterans-prove-unstoppable-entering-memorial/story?id=20446144 ). The other citation in that section is from a highly biased website of questionable trustworthiness; not to mention, even if the park service were shutting down private contractors against the details of their contract, or closing down monuments that normally cost nothing to operate, they may actually be required to do these things by the Antideficiency Act, which can force government agencies to shut down unfunded services even when leaving them running would cost less money. ( http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/02/ftc_down_nasa_s_climate_kids_up_some_government_websites_are_working_but.html ) I'd delete the whole paragraph, but the page is semi-protected now and I prefer to edit Wikipedia anonymously. --101.98.144.68 (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Prior to the edit, the last paragraph was directly or indirectly referencing the Washington Times. "The Washington Times reported on another administration email that seemed to show at least one agency has been instructed to make sure the cuts are as painful as President Obama promised they would be."  Article titled "Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised"


 * Does Wikipedia provide a list of news sources they consider not of questionable trustworthiness? You seem to be putting up a defense for something that is clearly happening in 2013.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.176.140 (talk) 01:49, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * From the timestamp on my comment, one can see I was referring to this version ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Washington_Monument_Syndrome&oldid=575781853 ), which cites "pjmedia.com" about private business shutdowns, and a local Connecticut newspaper about the Honor Flight being civil disobedience, which appeared to be contradicted by the national news sources I was seeing at the time, including that ABC News link I posted. (I realize the "ref" tags I added to my comment don't work in talk pages, so I've corrected that now. :) ) From the timestamp on your comment, I'm guessing you're referring to this version ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Washington_Monument_Syndrome&oldid=576069828 ) which quotes the Washington Post and, indeed, I find nothing objectionable with that version. As to the question of which sources are considered "reputable" by Wikipedia, it's complicated. See Identifying reliable sources --101.98.144.68 (talk) 23:19, 11 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I removed the paragraph as there is nothing to suggest it has anything to do with this article, or that the memorial was closed in order to sway public opinion (and actually, the reality is that the memorial was closed because it's a National Park and all National Parks are closed). This article seems to have some other POV problems as well, such as stating as fact that this is a real political tactic whereas in the modern era it tends to be just an accusation. But in the near-term, while the shutdown continues, we can expect more POV-pushing. --Loonymonkey (talk) 02:09, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay, I cleaned up the intro to make clear that it's an accusation, not an actual publicly acknowledged tactic as was previously stated. It's not a terribly common term, it's popped up in a few opinion pieces but that's about it.  Also, attempts to tie it to the current situation often seem to involve WP:SYNTH for POV reasons. --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Ambiguity in 2013 shutdown section
I found this sentence particularly confusing: "This Obama administration innovation faced daily..." Is the 'innovation' the closing of normally unstaffed monuments or does it refer to the closing of private parks on federal land? This sentence is also a good candidate for citation since it's not common knowledge what precisely forced the closures: was it explicit instructions from someone in the Obama administration; was it a direct consequence of no longer having spending authority... what was the exact cause? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.57.253.71 (talk) 07:09, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Sufficiently many took the joke as real that debunking site Snopes added an entry.
Is this English?