During the partial shutdown of the government, there wasn’t enough money to keep national parks open, but federal wildlife areas were opened to waterfowl hunting. Cash was lacking for some agencies dealing with public health, but there was enough for the military service academies to play football. Mine inspectors were furloughed but federal employees working with Obamacare stayed on the job.

This is crazy. Yet these situations and many others that simply didn’t make sense were part of how President Barack Obama’s administration made decisions on what is “essential” and what was “non-essential” during the shutdown.

It seems clear part of the equation involved making the shutdown as unpleasant as possible for the American people. In the process of that, however, some of them were put at risk unnecessarily.

Now that Congress and the White House have come to agreement to re-fund government operations, an investigation into how this shutdown was handled should be mounted. Tens of millions of Americans affected by bad choices on the shutdown should demand such a probe.