I heard most of this on the radio this morning. WTOP is "the most listened-to station". At their website, it is one of several questions answered by "The Answer Desk"
Is it really necessary to close monuments memorials on the National Mall during the shutdown?
 A partner [Mahoney] with a Washington law firm focused on the federal employment sector, says the barricades on the mall send a clear message that the government is shut down.
The "clear message" part was not included in the radio spot.
"It is somewhat political, I mean obviously the mall is a very publicly visible area," Mahoney says.
The park service says the monuments and memorials are closed because of staffing reductions. But Mahoney suggests some security is available.
"The park rangers are furloughed, currently, the park police are not," Mahoney says.
Some congressional Republicans complain that while the high profile spots are closed, including the Lincoln, Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials, other park property has remained open including Constitutional Gardens and the Japanese American Memorial.
Some of the closed monuments "are open spaces on an average given day," Mahoney says, and "whether they actually need to be closed is a fair question."
"A fair question." On the radio, I almost took the item to be approaching being somewhat, slightly critical of the government's approach to inflicting maximum pain. 
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