If House Republicans sometimes seem remarkably willing, time after time, to step into apparent P.R. disasters, perhaps it's because they can always count on the Obama administration to bail them out by overplaying its own hand.

In March, remember, the administration's decision to cancel White House tours as part of the cost-cutting required by sequestration backfired on Democrats. The move made it clear the administration was going out of its way to make Americans feel the pain of relatively small cuts to a budget that most Americans believe is too large. It's a tactic that's long been derided as the "Washington Monument syndrome."

But it seems the administration thought the only problem with its use of the tactic before was not employing it at an actual monument. And so now it is going out of its way to keep veterans from visiting the World War II Memorial -- which, according to its website (before the budget impasse spurred the shutdown of national parks' websites), ordinarily is open to the public 24 hours a day, even though park rangers are only present between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.

After the shutdown took effect, government employees -- "essential" ones, we can only surmise -- put barricades in place around the monument to prevent the public from visiting the monument. They had to put up barricades because the memorial sits at one end of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, between the Lincoln and, yes, Washington monuments, and does not have any gates.

So your federal government went out of its way to place barriers where none usually exist, to keep people out of a place that in ordinary times is never closed and not staffed around the clock. That included a group of Honor Flight veterans from northwest Ohio who ignored a threat of arrest, pushed the barricades aside and made their visit anyway. UPDATED: After a day and a half of trying to make their petty point, it appears the barricades are being taken down.

The fact the administration felt the need to take such an extraordinary measure i the first place tells us two things. First, officials know the shutdown on its own would not affect enough people on a day-to-day basis, at least not at first, to make the public think it's as bad as President Obama and congressional Democrats keep arguing. And second, that these officials are such spiteful people that they would go to great lengths to make sure it is that bad.

In a fund-raising email for Democrats sent about six hours before the shutdown began, "Barack" wrote, "When I make decisions, I think about people like you, and the millions of Americans just like you." Evidently, what he means is he thinks "people like you" need to suffer more than necessary so that he can make his political point.