The Next Obama Scandal: “Gun Walking”

Operation Fast and Furious was an idiotic attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to get proof that Mexican drug cartels are buying guns from American gun shops. This reckless operation had no chance of success and it got people killed, including American Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. What's more, it has all the hallmarks of being politically motivated and is likely to reach into the White House.



Starting in 2009, the ATF, part of Eric Holder’s Justice Department, got cooperative Phoenix-area gun shops to sell guns illegally to Mexicans. Rather than arrest these buyers, as they would have done in the past, the ATF instructed its agents to turn a blind eye to the sales. This has been called “gun walking” because they let these guns walk out the door. The ATF hoped the guns would be recovered from Mexican crime scenes, which they believed would let them build conspiracy cases against Mexican drug cartels. It didn’t. In fact, it couldn't because the entire concept is flawed. Consider this:

1. By telling the gun shops to knowingly sell the guns illegally, the agency itself made it possible for the guns to reach Mexico. Thus, this operation cannot stand as proof that American gun shops are selling to Mexicans because it was the ATF itself that made this possible and there is no evidence that any non-cooperating gun shops made similar sales.



2. Secondly, there’s no way to connect the drug cartels to the gun sales because the ATF didn’t keep track of the guns. In other words, even if cartel members used these guns in Mexico, there’s no way to trace the gun from the purchase to the cartel. And if the ATF's plan was just to assume the connection (something that is not permissible in a court of law) then why even bother releasing the guns?

Thus, even if the operation worked perfectly, it still could not have achieved the ATF's goals.



But more importantly, what was the cost of this stupidity? Republicans Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley just issued a 51 page report damning Operation Fast and Furious. From the start, this operation was criticized by experienced ATF agents as “reckless.” Said Grassley: “Both line agents and gun dealers who co-operated with the ATF repeatedly expressed concerns [about the operation]. . . but ATF supervisors did not heed those warnings. Instead, they told agents to follow orders because this was sanctioned from above.” And when ATF bosses were told this could result in people getting killed, they responded: “if you are going to make an omelet, you need to scramble some eggs.” In other words, they didn’t care. Apparently, they even threatened to fire or punish agents who complained.



It is unknown how many crimes these guns were used to commit because the ATF had no way to monitor what happened to the guns. But before the operation was stopped, 1,730 guns were allowed to disappear onto the black market, including hundreds of AK-47s and sniper rifles. One of those AK-47s was later used to kill Board Patrol Agent Brian Terry. And when he was killed, the ATF embarked on a cover up. William Newell, the special agent in charge of the operation, ordered the arrest of 20 of the minor gun buyers and then declared the operation a success even though nothing was ever linked to a single senior cartel member. When he was asked if the guns the ATF had let disappear were deliberately allowed to end up in the hands of criminals, he lied: “Hell no!”



So what you have here is a government agency that embarked on a policy that could not achieve the goals for which it was planned, which endangered thousands of American and Mexican lives, and which covered up the mess it created. If that’s not an argument for reining in the government, then nothing is.



Naturally, Obama has denied any knowledge of the operation and I’m sure Eric Holder will too. There is speculation that acting ATF director Kenneth Melson will be made the scapegoat here. But this is not the kind of operation that happens without higher up approval. In fact, one ATF agent has stated that this operation was cleared by the State Department, i.e. Hillary Clinton (who "coincidentally" came to the border to decry American guns right before this operation started).



To dodge this scandal, the Democrats are spinning this as the fault of the gun lobby for blocking the appointment of Obama’s choice to run the ATF -- that's the same Democrats who had a 60 seat majority but didn't confirm the guy. They also are trying to claim this started in 2006, which is true of the overall operation but not of the gun walking -- which only started in 2009 apparently after the approval of State. The ATF is trying to spin this as the result of the ATF not having enough personnel to monitor the guns, but that begs the question why they even started the operation.



In fact, why would they do this at all? The ATF says they wanted to get a better grasp on how cartels work, but that kind of knowledge is already available and this wouldn’t have helped them in any event. The real goal, in my opinion, was to create data to prove what Obama/Hillary/Holder were all arguing: that gun control is needed because American gun shops are arming Mexican drug cartels. That argument wasn’t working because everyone knows better. As I pointed out at the time, it’s silly to think Mexican cartels were buying guns from American gun shops when they have co-opted whole departments of the Mexican police and whole military units -- they could easily get better hardware out of Mexican armories. BUT. . . if American guns with serial numbers known to the ATF could suddenly be traced to a significant portion of murders in Mexico, then Obama/Clinton/Holder would have a new argument to aid them in their gun control attempts.



It strikes me this is a prime example of politicians abusing law enforcement to generate a controversy to help them score political points. People died so Team Obama could score those points. This is shameful and needs to be investigated.



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Barack Obama, Republican?

After suffering an historic repudiation in the last election, the Democrats are in a tizzy. Should they move further left? Should they just throw tantrums? Should they block everything? What would Barack do? Oh oh, Barack’s moved to the right, further right than even the RINOs. What’s worse, he keeps undercutting the Democrats. What is going on?



When the Democrats got blasted in 1994, Bill Clinton realized pretty quickly that he had to move to the center to survive. The strategy was called triangulation. And what it entailed was to let the Republicans have their way, and then claim ownership of their best ideas. Occasionally, Clinton would also criticize his own side, but rarely in stark terms and he never undercut them. Essentially, he became everyone’s friend.



Obama is now faced with a similar dilemma and he’s opted for triangulation as well. But Obama isn’t like Clinton, and his triangulation isn’t the benign sort Clinton tried. His version of triangulation involves undercutting the Democrats over and over. Indeed, things are getting ugly!



The first obvious example of triangulation occurred right after the election when Obama endorsed the idea of extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. The Democrats intended to play hardball on that issue and were already staking out a typically nasty class-warfare position, when Obama suddenly announced he would agree to extend the tax cuts in exchange for more stimulus spending. The Democrats were beside themselves with rage. “He’s undercut us!” they scream, along with a few profanities. In fact, the House held a closed-door meeting of Democrats where they took turns swearing at, blasting, and lampooning Obama.



The next instance of triangulation involved Obama’s retention of Bill Daley as his replacement for “center-right” (**chuckle, chuckle**) Rahm Emanuel. The selection of Daley, a noted non-leftist Democrat with massive Wall Street ties, was seen as an attempt by Obama to get back into the good graces of big business. The Democrats were despondent.



Then came the Tucson shooting. As the left wound up their hate machine and began calling for the blood of their critics, all under the guise of whining about the atmosphere of hate their critics created, Obama came along and told everyone that rhetoric had nothing to do with the shooting. Once again, he cut the legs out from beneath them and there were furious.



Now, Obama has stolen the idea of Paul Ryan and Darrell Issa to go through the Code of Federal Regulations (“CFR”) and identify for removal any regulations that are hindering economic growth. What makes this all the more interesting is that (1) this has the potential of crippling years of Democratic legislative victories, (2) doing this won’t stop Issa from embarrassing the Democrats through his hearings, where businessmen will come and blast the regulations they’ve put in place, and (3) this provides a tremendous amount of cover for the Republicans from Democratic attacks that they’re undermining government. Wow!



Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Obama has suddenly become a Republican. There were political reasons for each of these acts. The Republicans simply weren’t going to cave in on the tax issue, so why not get what he could and declare victory. Obama needs to reconnect with Wall Street to finance his billion dollar campaign, and Daley is the man to do that. By the time he spoke about Tucson, it was increasingly clear the shooter was a leftist and a backlash was growing against the left’s attacks. And Obama knows that economic growth is his only chance to get re-elected. So these decisions were political, not principled.



But in each instance, Obama could have achieved his goals without so ruthlessly cutting the legs out from under the Democrats. So why do it this way? I think the answer lies in the difference between Obama and Clinton. Clinton was a master at following the crowd. He had no principles whatsoever, so he stuck his finger into the wind and went where it led him. But more importantly, he was savvy enough to chart the safest course to the front of the bandwagon for himself and his friends.



Obama lacks Bill Clinton’s savvy, and he is not and never has been a team player. So now that he finds he need to chase a few bandwagons to get re-elected, he doesn’t even bother thinking about his friends and allies. It’s every man for himself. And that’s why the Democrats keep finding themselves stranded as Obama runs off and shells the land he had led them to.



So this has led Obama to tax cuts, deregulation, spending cuts, and stopping attempts to stifle gun rights and free speech. If Obama keeps this up, he may actually end up being one of the better Republican presidents before his term is over. . . and what’s left of the Democratic Party is going to hate him.



Finally, let me throw this out there for you to chew on. Putting aside our natural and well-earned cynicism for dealing with Democrats, it's also just possible that Obama's change of heart on these issues is an indication that he's grown wiser and he's starting to understand that the destructive class-warfare preached by the Democratic Party is no way to run a country? Wouldn't that be interesting?



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Republicans Play Smart!

Prior to the Giffords shooting, the media was busy trying to discredit House Republicans for their first week in power. They spun stories of a lavish “Republican” fundraiser (though only a handful of Republicans attended), they whined about two Republicans not being properly sworn in (a non-issue at best), and they complained that Republicans didn’t cut $100 billion from the budget on day one. Of course, few people fell for these smears. What's more interesting though is something that's gone almost entirely unnoticed by the media, something that could turn out to be significant.



Years back, the Congress put a limit on the size of the federal debt. But the federal budget is so out of control that the Treasury keeps running into that limit. Consequently, the Congress must repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling or face the music as government spending grinds to a halt and the government begins defaulting on its obligations.



One such moment came up prior to the election. But with the Democrats likely to lose the election, they decided to set a trap for the Republicans. By voting only to extend the debt ceiling for a few months worth of spending, the Democrats hoped that one of the first votes the new Republican Congress would need to make would be to raise the debt ceiling. The Democrats hoped this would embarrass the Republicans and alienate them from their Tea Party allies. It seemed like a nice trick.



But like everything else the Democrats do, this one has blown up in their faces. Indeed, rather than just hold their noses and vote to raise the debt ceiling, as the Democrats expected, the Republicans decided to hold out until Obama agrees to budget concessions. Said Speaker John Boehner:

"The American people will not stand for such an increase unless it is accompanied by meaningful action by the president and Congress to cut spending and end the job-killing spending binge in Washington. While America cannot default on its debt, we also cannot continue to borrow recklessly, dig ourselves deeper into this hole, and mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren."

Even the RINOs are on board. Said Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.):

“This is an opportunity to make sure that the government is changing its spending ways. I will not the vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long-term obligations, starting with Social Security.”

Graham’s demands are similar to those of many Tea Party activists -- raise the retirement age for Social Security, means test benefits, and slash non-security discretionary spending to 2008 levels. The Republican leadership is on board as well, as are most members, though some are opposed to raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances.



Obama first tried to castigate the Republicans for “playing chicken” with “catastrophe,” but now indicates he’s willing to reach a deal with the Republicans. Harry Reid too has climbed on board, though many on the left continue to resist. Said Dick Durbin (D-Ill): "Using this doomsday scenario and putting the American economy at risk I don't think is a responsible way to govern." Wah!! What does Durbin know about responsibility?



What makes this such an interesting issue is that the Republicans could well be on the verge of obtaining actual, serious concessions from Obama. Consider that for a moment. When the Republicans won the House but not the Senate, the assumption was that nothing would happen until 2012, when Obama could be replaced and a majority obtained in the Senate. But through the careful application of political pressure, the Republicans may be about to obtain concessions that begin to right our fiscal house and reshape the federal budget toward conservative goals.



Combined with actual cuts ($35 billion in the House budget), Issa’s deviously clever plan to let American business have a hand in slashing regulations, and the seeming easy unity of Tea Party people and RINOs (and even some Democrats), things appear to be off to a pretty good start in Washington. Maybe these really aren’t the same old Republicans?



What do you think?



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Is Issa On To Something?

As the incoming Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa (R-Ca) will be critical to Republican hopes of defeating Obama in 2012. Indeed, as the point man for Congressional oversight over the Obama administration, Issa occupies a position that could let him destroy Obama. . . or could destroy the Republicans amid charges of witch hunts and grandstanding. At this point, I’m still not sold that Issa’s plan will be good for the Republicans, but I’m starting to get a good feeling.

Prior to the election, Issa made a lot of very aggressive noises about dragging administration people before his committee to explain everything he could dream up. This sounded like his plan was to conduct round-the-clock witch hunts in the hopes that the spectacle of constant investigations would damage the Obama Administration. That would have reflected very poorly on the Republicans, particularly at a time when people are starting to demand greater results from their representatives and less political grandstanding.

But a week ago, Issa softened his tone and started sounding more statesman-like, talking about trying to work with the White House rather than beating them up. He even met with Joe Biden and declared that there would be no reason to use subpoenas to drag people before his committee. That sounded doubly-positive. For while I don’t want witch hunts, which always backfire, I do want solid investigations of issues where the Obama Administration has failed or has violated the law and I want to see legislation introduced to correct those problems.

Yesterday, Issa issued his list of investigations, and again I wasn’t too thrilled. The list seemed like a grab bag of unrelated issues that had more to do with re-fighting the blame game for the financial meltdown than it did anything approaching the kinds of oversight that are needed today -- oversight like restricting unaccountable czars, accounting for slush funds, and repealing stifling regulations.

Then a key new fact emerged regarding Issa’s plan. Apparently, he has sent letters to 150 trade associations and companies, in which he asks them to identify the regulations that have been put into place that are restricting job creation and growth. I see this as brilliant on many levels:

● First, this should be a wonderful education for the public on the nature of regulation and its connection to the creation/destruction of jobs.

● Secondly, if done properly, these hearings will result in a steady drumbeat of business leaders (not Republican Congressmen) bashing the Obama administration and its policies. This should lead to a devastating public relations nightmare for an Obama Administration that is already seen as anti-business.

● Third, this should actually result in useful legislation that targets the most harmful regulations and seeks their repeal. Indeed, done properly, this could easily lead to a deregulatory wave of the like not seen since the Reagan Administration, and could easily sweep away recent power grabs like the EPA’s attempt to regulate carbon and the FCC’s attempt to impose net neutrality.

To me, this is one of those pleasant surprises where you start to think that the people you’ve put your faith into may actually know what they’re doing.

Add in that the Democrats are taking the wrong tact on ObamaCare and this has quickly turned into a hopeful week -- rather than defending ObamaCare across the board as a single item, the Democrats are mistakenly defending only the popular parts, e.g. plugging the “donut hole” and covering the uninsurable. If the Democrats aren’t careful, the Republicans will call their bluff on this and will offer a repeal of all but those handful of provisions, and the Democrats will be trapped.

Between this strategic mistake by the Democrats and the solid plan by Issa to let business blast the Obama Administration, this could be a very bad year for the Democrats and their agenda.

Let’s hope.


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