The White House Reopens For Public Tours

How gracious of the President to do this. When was the last time the people were closed out from the White House 9/11?

But I was of the understanding that the CR retained the "austerity" sequestration which "necessitated" the closing of the White House when it kicked in. So did sequestration cause the suspension of the tours or was that another "make it hurt" tactic of the administration?

Bongino, who served 12 years in the Secret Service including five years working directly at the White House before leaving to run as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Maryland, said Obama is lying because the Secret Service does not make such decisions.

“The Secret Service does not make political decisions,” Bongino said. “The Secret Service makes security decisions. His statement that it was a Secret Service decision internal budget decision–and keep in mind, I’m not speaking for the Secret Service, I’m speaking from experience of being with them. All he’d have to do is cancel one or two of his political trips and his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, which two years ago I was on and helped coordinate, he would save that money times ten. There was just no way this was a sound decision. To insinuate this is the first administration where the White House social office and the Executive Office of the President had no role in cancelling public tours at the White House, that he was the first president who was left out of the decision, is absolute nonsense.”

Bongino said he thinks the president is using “the Washington Monument strategy”–a ploy by a politician who tries to garner public opposition to spending cuts by eliminating popular public services first–in doing this to White House tours. “He wanted to inflict, there is no question in my mind, maximum pain upon the American people. But here’s the caveat: it had to be public pain. If you don’t see it, it doesn’t hurt.”

Read more: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/03/13/obama-tries-to-spin-white-house-tour-shutdown-makes-it-worse/