Marshall Sanford: “I came down to this well yesterday to talk about how for 20 years I have run back and forth to the Lincoln Memorial and…”

“I came down to this well yesterday to talk about how for 20 years I have run back and forth to the Lincoln Memorial and how the day before yesterday I was shocked to run down there and see the place in chains. I had planned on making a run last night, and then tragically this shooting occurred here yesterday. But it turns out there's some things that I didn't know about the Lincoln Memorial. In this shot, I had become so agitated, I had asked a tourist to take a picture. And it is an amazing picture of, again, the Lincoln Memorial without people, because what I have come to learn is that it has always been a place with people. I didn't realize that in the last government shutdown, President Clinton elected not to close down the Lincoln Memorial. I didn't realize there had been 17 shutdowns in this country since 1976, and not one President elected to close down the Lincoln Memorial. That means President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush, and President Clinton each, when given the discretion in how they would handle a shutdown, chose not to hold Americans hostage in somehow gaining political favor by a shutdown that would hurt them on their tour to Washington, D.C. In fact, what I came to learn is that in the history of the American Republic, the Lincoln Memorial has never been shut down. So, my simple question would be: Why? I think it's interesting that Dr.…”