Fast & Furious vs. Watergate

What if a cadre of anti-gun leftists in the White House concocted a bizarre plan to curtail the ownership of private firearms? The first step might be to blame all the border mayhem on guns coming from the United States.

Well, let’s look at the record. On April 16, 2009, newly inaugurated President Barack Obama, traveled to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. At that meeting President Obama said…

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States… more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border. So we have responsibilities as well.”

Really, that’s the source of all the guns on the border? Well if it is the fault of the United States we should curtail gun sales, right? Sure, the facts don’t back up the accusation, but we can fix that. We could arrange for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and US Department of Justice to start a secret program whose ostensible purpose is to catch the Mexican gang members. We’ll make sure hundreds of high powered guns and ammunition make it into the hands of Mexican Drug Lords. We’ll do this by pressuring legitimate gun sellers in the United States to sell these weapons to suspected Mexican gang leaders. Then we’ll trace the guns back to the drug leaders and presto, we’ll stop the killing.

Of course, the real purpose of this secret plan which we’ll call something like “Operation Fast & Furious” is to validate the assertion that it is American gun sellers who are responsible for all the mayhem and bloodshed on the border. We won’t really try to trace the guns or use them to find Drug Lords, we’ll just let the killing increase dramatically and get so bad that there will be a public outcry to shut down the gun sellers along the border and all across the nation. Finally, once and for all, we will start getting guns out of the hands of American citizens. “Operation Fast & Furious” is, of course, just the first step.

We can count on the news media to get on board. They will pick up the chant, “American guns are the cause of violence on the border.” The stage will be set. And so “Operation Fast & Furious” got underway in the Fall of 2009. At first, things were going along swimmingly. A brilliant political plan hatched in the Obama White House to stop gun sales to private individuals was well underway.

But on December 15, 2010, Operation Fast & Furious began to unravel. That’s the day that U.S. Border agent, Brian Terry, was killed by guns sold through Operation Fast & Furious. At first his death was reported as just another killing on the border and for many months thereafter, the ATF and the DOJ were able to keep the lid on the source of the weapon that killed Brian Terry. The killing did not apparently dim the enthusiasm of President Obama for Operation Fast & Furious.

“On March 30, [2011] the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial "large magazines." Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, ‘to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,’ she said.

‘I just want you to know that we are working on it,’ Brady recalled the president telling them. ‘We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.’

You can almost hear the President’s excitement and enthusiasm bubbling over. Years ago the Democrats made a political decision to stop their campaign against private gun ownership. It was a political loser and they could not get elected if they continued their drive to end private gun ownership in America. But that political calculation never set well with those on the far left, like Barack Obama and his pal, Bill Ayres. Like all leftists throughout history, they do not want guns in the hands of private citizens. Power to the people does not include wealth, property or guns. It’s just a slogan to keep their uninformed followers in line. They like having guns in the hands of the police and the army, (both of which they control) but not in the hands of individual Americans.

But the smart politicos in the White House, encouraged by our very smart President, were about to put one over on those country bumpkins who still believed in the Constitution. They were going to create a hue and cry as had never been heard before to end private gun sales. It was almost too good to be true. Surely the death of one border agent couldn’t derail such a magnificent plan. After all, such collateral damage is sometimes necessary to accomplish important political objectives. The good of the masses is far more important than just one life. Just ask Joseph Stalin.

But in December 2011, the dam burst. Speaking to FOX News, ATF Special Agent John Dodson said,

“I am here today because it’s been a year since the first hearing and Brian Terry’s family still doesn’t have answers."

Dodson blew the whistle on Operation Fast & Furious.

Of course the news media jumped right on this story. Sadly, that’s not what happened. They almost entirely ignored the story. In fact, as the story grew and became bigger and bigger, NBC News allocated just 10 seconds of one evening news broadcast to coverage of the story, tossing it aside as “politics.” It wasn’t politics to Brian Terry and his family. Even today, after months of stonewalling by US Attorney General Eric Holder, the media does its best to ignore this story. President Obama did his utmost to keep investigators from getting hold of all the documents related to this story by asserting Executive Privilege, but even this has not awakened the mainstream news media to perhaps the biggest White House scandal in American history.

Let’s see. The Nixon folks called Watergate a tempest in a teapot and “just politics.” President Nixon also asserted Executive Privilege. Even though Attorney General Holder has been held in contempt by a bipartisan coalition of the United States House of Representatives, the compliant news media continues to spin the Fast & Furious scandal as “just politics.” Calls for an independent prosecutor are studiously ignored and the media have joined in the stonewalling.

White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, is right when he says that Operation Fast & Furious is nothing like Watergate. No one died as a result of Watergate. In fact, we may learn when the truth eventually comes out that Watergate was peanuts compared to this bloody scandal.

Meanwhile, every effort is being made to discredit, distort and delay any investigation into Operation Fast & Furious. Is that the shredders running overtime at the White House that I hear, destroying any incriminating e-mails, notes, letters, or other documentation?

The question is, what did the President know and when did he know it? Was he referring to Operation Fast & Furious when he said that he was doing something to get rid of all the guns “under the radar.” If not, what was he referring to? Was the President in on the plan from the beginning, or just an enthusiastic supporter as the plan unfolded?

This is a White House that has repeatedly proven that it has total disregard for the law. They only see laws as an impediment doing whatever they want to do. Or as the President famously said, “I can’t wait for Congress.” Whether it is Congress or the Constitution, both are just obstacles to a White House that finds more to like about dictators such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro than they do the Founders of this nation.

Methinks the President will be fortunate to lose the election and retire to a very nice pension and endless rounds of golf and relaxation, rather than the possibility of facing impeachment and conviction for his role in the cover-up of Operation Fast & Furious. If I were President Obama I’d choose this election year to get out of Dodge, before his house of cards collapses entirely. No one wants to see any President of the United States in the docket. Stay tuned, the whole story is yet to be told.