Slow and Stupid

The Slow and Stupid Duck and Cover
©2012 Ross Williams

First, the Justice Department said that there was no such operation as Fast and Furious. They said this because an ATF agent – who was taking part in the operation – tattled on them after a DEA agent was killed by one of the automatic weapons that ATF was running to Mexican drug gangs.

“No no! We do not run guns to Mexican banditos!” the Justice Department weenies said; “why ...why ... that would be illegal!”

Uh huh, and does Shyster General Eric Holder know about this?

“No no! Holder knows nothing about Fast and Furious, ... and there is no such thing anyway.”

Come to find out, there was, and Holder knew all about it.

Second, the purpose of Fast and Furious was to run guns to Mexican drug gangs for the purpose of learning who was in those drug gangs – in particular [apparently] the Sinaloa Cartel.

Yet the leaders of, and main gangsters in, those gangs are already notoriously well known, so the stated purpose would seem to consist of a grand rationalization wrapped up in fart gas. Or, as otherwise known, “politics as usual”.

So what we’ve got is that the Obama Administration ran guns to Mexican criminal gangs without the knowledge or permission of the Mexican government, it back-fired and got one of our own killed, and Team Obama goes into full cover-up mode.

A partial list of the dodges, and in somewhat of an order, are as follows:

Dodge: Fast and Furious does not exist; there is no such government operation.

Reality: Yes, it does. It started in the spring of 2009.

It was an Obama Administration thing.

Dodge: Okay, yes it exists, but it was directed by the head of ATF, and not by the Justice Department; nobody above ATF in the food chain knew anything about it and there is no paper trail going that high.

Reality: Career bureaucrats tend to resent being made to take the fall for political hacks who come and go with the shifting winds of voting patterns. That’s why so many career bureaucrats under Bush complained to the sympathetic ears of the New York Times when they were put in the position of taking the blame for one of the shenanigans perpetrated between ’01 and ’08, and it’s why others are tattling to the sympathetic ears at FoxNews now.

Holder knew all along, as the career bureaucrats who have to work under both Democrats as well as Republicans have clearly stated. The only pertinent question is: did Obama? How far up the mountain does the paper trail lead?

Dodge: Okay, so Holder knew, but actually, Fast and Furious was a continuation of a Bush-era program code named Wide Receiver.

Reality: Nice try; Wide Receiver was a joint US-Mexican operation – Mexico knew about it and participated in it. Mexican involvement prevented the guns from actually getting to the drug cartels where they could be turned around and used against rival gangs, US DEA agents, or from simply traipsing back north across the border to be used in “mere” criminal activities in Arizona and New Mexico – which the Justice Department still denies has occurred despite evidence to the contrary.

Mexico knew nothing about Fast and Furious and was indeed quite put out about it when they learned of it, as running guns to drug gangs in Mexico would have been the equivalent of Canada running guns to the Capone gang or the Detroit Mafia without US knowledge and permission; it is a violation of national sovereignty and a violation of International Law. Mexico has every justification to consider it an Act of War – though they are unlikely to do so in any material way. They will grouse and bitch ... until the Obama Administration does something Mexico likes, such as inventing an amnesty program for illegal immigrants.

Furthermore, a Justice Department letter to the House Committee which is attempting to grill Holder about this subject has admitted that Holder was “inadvertently” factually incorrect when he characterized Fast and Furious as a continuation of Wide Receiver or any other Bush-era program. “Factually incorrect” is a far nicer way of saying “he lied”; the Acting Assistant Attorney General who sent this factual correction to the House Oversight Committee is a career bureaucrat who preceded Holder in the Justice Department and who will outlast Holder’s tenure as its figurehead; she has to be able to exist with both Democrats and Republicans.

Dodge: Okay, there’s a Justice Department paper trail that leads to the desk of Shyster General Eric Holder, but you can’t see it.

Reality: The purpose of the House Oversight Committee is to exercise the Constitutional authority of the Legislative branch over the doings of the Executive branch, and to make sure it stays within its borders ... in much the same way that the ATF’s automatic weapons did not.

We can get the courts involved if you like ...

Dodge: Okay, you can see the paper trail; here it is.

Reality: This isn’t what we asked for; please provide what we asked for or we’ll seek a Contempt citation against Shyster General Holder.

Dodge: We’ll invoke Executive Privilege to keep from giving the House Oversight Committee the paper trail they want to see.

N.B.: Executive Privilege is a non-Constitutional dodge used [and, sadly, upheld by the idiot courts] when Congress is getting too close to the shenanigans of a sitting President rather than his appointees. The question “Did Obama know” would seem to be answered. “Was it Obama’s idea” can be implied; aren’t many Presidents in a re-election willing to take the fall for an appointee. He’d “reluctantly accept the resignation” of the appointee instead.

It seems that the House Oversight Committee might be onto something, odd as that may sound. And in the grand scheme of things, what they would seem to be onto is so unremarkable as to be indistinguishable from any of a thousand other imperious and presumptuous pranks committed by the United States within and without its borders in just the last decade.

Only ... those pranks were very seldom accompanied by an Executive Privilege decree trying to keep it hushed up. You have to wonder why this, why now?

Or, rather, you would if you didn’t already have a pretty good idea.