Ah yes, the inimitable Ms. Coulter. I believe it is a requirement for being a female commentator on Fox News that you be white and blond.
Irenicus presents the perfectly valid reasons why monuments cannot be opened unless there is sufficient staff to monitor the behavior of visitors, clean up after them, etc., etc. Members of Congress like Bachmann and Neugebauer look like self-interested fools, especially after the latter berated some poor young Park Ranger for doing her job, a job which his vote to shut down the government required.
None of this is the President's doing. Until the Republicans are willing to pass a "clean" continuing resolution to restore the government's funding and agree to raise the debt ceiling the President is duty-bound not to capitulate. To do otherwise would put his Administration, and every future President's Administration, at risk of extortion using the budget and the debt ceiling as, to use Speaker Boehner's term for it, "leverage."
Moreover the right-wing "Tea Party" contingent in the Republican Party are not really interested in obtaining concessions on the part of the Administration. For them, closing down the government is the goal. Notice how none of them ever really explains what it is about the Affordable Care Act that makes it so egregious that blocking it rationalizes a government shutdown. Boehner, for instance, repeats over and over again the meme that he and his colleagues are providing "fairness" for the American people by stopping the ACA. What on earth does that mean? How is the current disaster that constitutes American healthcare "fair" to the American people, particularly those with pre-existing conditions or other obstacles to obtaining health care at a reasonable price? Watch this
dialogue between the Daily Show's Jason Jones and right-wing commentator Noelle Nikpour. Do you hear any specific policy concerns in her comments? Of course not. It's just assumed everyone thinks "Obamacare" is the beginning of the end times. (While you're there stick around for Stewart's interview with the remarkable Malala Yousafzai. If only our politicians were half as eloquent as that sixteen-year-old girl.)
This whole strategy has been months, if not years, in the making. I recommend both
this story in last Sunday's NY Times and this piece by
Rachel Maddow from last week.