Americans are learning to their great surprise that Smokey the Bear has big, sharp teeth.



Formerly warm and cuddly branches of government — the Park Service, Forest Service and other granola–based management teams — have suddenly turned on innocent taxpayers who only wanted to scratch behind their ears.

You’re no doubt familiar with the WWII veterans who removed barriers the US Park Police erected to block the formerly law enforcement–free WWII Monument on the Mall. (Best sign of the Shutdown: “Normandy was closed when we got there, too.”) But that’s only one of many incidents.

The Washington Post interviewed a visitor from San Antonio who “expressed indignation at the petty ways that officials prevented people from enjoying national landmarks.” Her family had no problem looking at the cemetery itself since putting barriers in front of each tombstone was too much for even Smokey Bear. But they were unable to peek inside Arlington House because “they put black plastic in the windows so we couldn’t look in.”

If the reporter could have found a spokesperson not literally manning the barricades, I’m sure the response would have been the plastic was simply part of the annual preparations for the ‘Old Virginny Haunted House of Slavery’ that takes place in the mansion every October.

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