WASHINGTON ― The face of the National Mall may be seeing a make-over in the near future after a recent poll by the United States Census Bureau revealed that a large number of Americans were no longer satisfied with the Lincoln Memorial. This may come as a horrifying shock to any red-blooded American readers, but reports have shown that the popularity of the now century-old national icon have been falling for at least a decade. A flurry of reporters and patriots from the Ax took to the historic steps earlier this week to find out just what has been ruffling so many feathers.
“It sends the wrong message to our children,” said Joyce Haarspun, a Philadelphia-area mother of three. “He just sits there all day, and the government pays for it! When I take my kids to our national icons, that’s not what I want them to walk away with.”
Mrs. Haarspun’s dual critique of both the time-honored monument and the American welfare system was far from the only one Ax reporters heard.
While visitors from across the country chimed in to shed light on the hallowed spot’s fall from grace, the most revealing insights came from National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, who, in an unprecedented exposé, shared the inside scoop on of where it all went wrong for the world renowned memorial.
“It all really started in 1994 with Forrest Gump,” he began to tell reporters. “That was when visitorship peaked.”
Things went sour when Jarvis’s predecessors attempted to capitalize on the historic site’s booming success. Over the next fifteen years the monument would be featured in numerous films of varying success, including Tim Burton’s forgettable take on Planet of the Apes in 2001.
“At some point during this time a line was crossed and the public knew it,” Jarvis reflected. “I think it was after Ben Stiller talked with the statue in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. It was just too much!”
The National Park Service Director’s views were echoed by a number of those who were interviewed by the Ax.
“After Megatron broke the statue and then sat on the throne in the third Transformers movie, the whole thing just feels cheap, you know?” said one Nevada tourist. “I just feel like the Park Service sold out. And where’s Megatron?”
All may not be lost however for the monument. Recently, the First Lady announced a desire to redesign the site to feature a more active Lincoln as part of her Let’s Move initiative. It has been reported that Congress has broken into a vigorous gridlock over whether the proposed new monument should feature Lincoln jogging or doing calisthenics.
