I’ve been aware that the righties have been going on and on about something called Fast and Furious for months now, but every time I checked it out it didn’t add up to much. “Fast and Furious” was part of a sting operation conducted by the ATF between 2006 and 2011 to trace gun trafficking across the Mexican border by the drug cartels. It has led to some arrests, but on the whole has been a flop. One border patrol agent was killed in a botched operation.
If you aren’t seeing an Obama Administration scandal here, you must not be a rightie. Fast and Furious combines two rightie obsessions, guns and the Mexican border. Oh, and the Obama Administration, never mind that the program began during the Bush Administration. Righties are certain that the Obama Administration planted guns in Mexico as part of a scheme to undermine the Second Amendment. Recently House Oversight Committee member Rep. John Mica (R-FL) said,
“People forget how all of this started. This administration is a gun-control administration. They tried to put the violence in Mexico on the blame of the United States. So they concocted this scheme and actually sending our federal agents, sending guns down there, and trying to cook some little deal to say that we have got to get more guns under control,” Mica said, a theory that is supported by absolutely zero evidence. “That’s how this all started.”
According to everything I can find, “all of this started” in 2006, three years before the Obama Administration took office. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped the wingnuts from working themselves into a frenzy over Fast and Furious. House Republicans, Darrell Issa in particular, have striven mightily to jack Fast and Furious up into Obama’s Watergate.
To make a long story short, the House Oversight Committee chaired by Issa, has worked up a nice constitutional crisis by holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt because he didn’t give them evidence confirming what they wanted to believe. This is basically all about destroying the Obama Administration by any means necessary. The President’s evoking executive privilege may be less about a cover up than about rope-a-dope. Josh Marshall:
Here’s my question: Does the Obama White House really care? I’ve seen very little evidence that Eric Holder doesn’t enjoy the total confidence of the President. And a contempt vote only has the power of whatever moral opprobrium it carries. In practice, it means little to nothing. Presidents in a general election context often welcome confrontations with the base of the opposition party in Congress. I wonder if the White House (and also the campaign) actually welcomes this or at least is happy to see the House take its best shot.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for writing about this. My take on this little tempest in a teapot was similar to yours. There really doesn’t seem to be anything there. On the other hand, the lack of anything to grasp has never stopped the Republicans.
Lord, you wouldn’t know it was nothing listening to my GOP family members and acquaintances on Facebook. Jim-A-Nee, they are hopping about this.
One told me that Holder flat out lied. When I asked what his lie was, she asked me how Obama knew about F&F in March 2010 when Holder said he’d found out about it in May. So I look around a bit and find that Holder said on May 3, 2010 that he’d found out about F&F in the “last few weeks.” The Obama clip isn’t dated other than it being in March, but even if it was March 1, that would be around eight weeks. That’s Holder’s lie? Fox News has got these people worked up past all foolishness over this.
They’re flinging poo in all directions, hoping that something sticks, and that the electorate finds something that makes them prefer the MITT2012 model over Obama.
It’s also the “Death Ba a Thousand Cuts” approach. Between the Houses R Mad-hatters, the Senates R’s filibustering, the NRA’s endless (and, sadly, groundless) conspiracy theories about gun control and seizures, and talk radio’s and FOX’s endless hysteria and propaganda, they’re trying to wound the President and Congressional Democrats with ANY and EVERY thing.
As usual, this clusterfeck can be traced, as most recent ones can, to “Baby Doc” Bush, and his ‘Band of Dour, Scared, and Incompetent Men & Women.” And Obama and his people, again have to try to clean up some toxic policy, like F&F, while the R’s blame him for either creating the mess, or not cleaning it up fast enough.
Issa is a smarmy, rich, (ex-criminal?) @$$hole, who is now doing whatever he can, not only to help the R’s, but himself – he’s a media whore with endless ambition. He is a demagogic Conservative, who is trying everything he can think of to try to start impeachment proceedings, either next year, in case Obama wins in November – or maybe before – all to help R’s win in November.
This, btw, is Obama’s first claim of Executive Privilege, and, since they don’t/can’t acknowledge that a black man can possibly be President, how can he claim any “privilege?”
Privileges are for white people.
Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II – ok!
But NOT Obama, or America’s other “First Black President” – Clinton.
Knowing that it was started during the Bush administration explains why it was so poorly planned. But, that is something the GOP would never admit.
Bonnie,
The GOP would like to clarify that this was NOT started during George H.W. Bush’s administration, since no one else named “Bush” has ever been President, except that one.
So, this program was either started somewhere in Clinton’s 3rd term, from 2001-2005, or Obama’s 1st term, from 2005-2009.
Considering the House committee is being chaired by a car thief, it is hard to see this as anything more than farce.
Zinsky,
It’s also chaired by a guy who voted for the program in Congress!
And NOW, he’s bitchin’?!?!?!?!?!?!
[Comment in violation of commenting rulesBe a and deleted. You can’t just tell us we are ignorant; you have to present and argument and document that we are ignorant. You are welcome to try again. – maha]
What the feck does this mean?
LiberalRtraitors.
Is is supposed to be, LiberalsRtraitors.
Or, is it an abbreviation for Liberal R’s being traitors?
If you can’t come-up a moniker that makes sense, how can anyone expect your comment to?