Break out the klaxons bells! House Republicans have uncovered an uber-top-secret cover-up by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department! You know, that failed attempt last year by federal investigators allowing guns to end up in the hands of gangs of criminals in order to disrupt large-scale arms trafficking by organized crime syndicates across the US-Mexico border? It had a fancy-schmancy name, ‘Operation Fast & Furious’…like the movie starring Vin Diesel? Just imagine Iran-Contra in the Eighties, only without the arms selling part…and the ‘overthrowing-a-government-we-don’t-like-part.’
Oh, right. You were more concerned with making your next mortgage payment and upset that your employer just dumped your company-subsidized health insurance in order to increase corporate profits. Oops. Okay…
But, anyway—
Here’s the really neat part of this whole fracas. President Obama declared executive privilege for the first time (but, at this point in Obama’s first term, President George W. Bush has him beat in the executive privilege department). Oooh, there’s just got to be something juicy in those protected documents, right? Just charge Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt for refusing to honor the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subpoena. Nobody, but NOBODY, says “No!” to Darrell Issa (R-ViperCarAlarm). Why, this will make the hunt for Monica Lewinsky’s Gap dress with the Clintonian semen stains seem like…like…just a minor sex scandal.
Because, after all, the American people would much rather Congress focus, like a laser, on issues like this, even when it has little or no impact on national security. Besides, when you have absolutely no new ideas on how to improve the economy, save for the same tired retreads which only go so far before they blow up beneath the undercarriage, you have to find something, anything, to fast & furiously wag the dog. Especially when it’s an election year and your anointed candidate presents as a cavalier noblesse oblige rich guy robot whose positronic brain has only just become self-aware.
How about this compromise: President Obama will allow the Justice Department to release every document pertaining to Operation Fast & Furious on the condition that all incriminating documents protected by executive privilege invoked by President George W. Bush also be released at the same time. I think that’s fair exchange. Your move, House Republicans.