To give a quick background: Operation Fast & Furious, of course, was an incredibly botched government program where federal law enforcement agencies handed over firearms willy-nilly to Mexican narco-terrorists and then lost track of the weapons… no, really, that’s what they did, and the next person who comes up with a legitimate and/or sane reason for them doing that will be the first. As you might imagine, Congressional watchdogs – Republican ones; the Democrats are largely hiding from this one – are a bit perturbed about this, not least because it turns out that the Justice Department gave out patently false information when asked about it the first time. Which is to say, DoJ denied that it handed over firearms willy-nilly to Mexican narco-terrorists and then lost track of the weapons.

At any rate, I think that the paragraph quoted below from the AP piece tells you everything that you need to know about why the official Obama administration’s response to inquiries about Fast & Furious is widely considered to have been insufficient, inexcusable, inappropriate, and just plain insolent:

In another email, [former U.S. Attorney Dennis] Burke wrote, “By the way, what is so offensive about this whole project” of response “is that [Senator Chuck] Grassley’s staff, acting as willing stooges for the Gun Lobby, have attempted to distract from the incredible success in dismantling” Southwest Border “gun trafficking operations” and “not uttering one word of rightful praise and thanks to ATF – but, instead, lobbing this reckless despicable accusation that ATF is complicit in the murder of a fellow federal law enforcement officer.”

It amazes me that the AP managed to write its article without using the term ‘lying suckweasels’ once. To break this down: ‘willing stooges for the Gun Lobby’ is of course inflammatory, not to say utterly unproven; if a program where up to 1,200 guns were essentially thrown to the Mexican drug cartels is considered an ‘incredible success,’ I am too terrified to even contemplate what an ‘utter failure’ would look like; and, given the recent revelation that Border Patrol Brian Terry’s death may have been due to the FBI’s/DEA’s unwillingness to risk exposing a confidential informant, neither ‘reckless’ nor ‘despicable’ really apply as adjectives modifying ‘accusation.’ All in all, this was… pretty representative of this administration when it comes to being questioned on their actions, really.

Which might be one reason why they’ve sealed the records of the Terry murder case. Mind you, if it is, it’s not going to help.

Moe Lane (crosspost)