by David Safier
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had this great idea — hold hearings about the ATF's "Operation Fast and Furious," where the ATF may have gotten sloppy and let straw buyers carry more than a thousand firearms into Mexico and put them in the hands of Mexican cartels. Issa's goal is to make it look like the reason U.S. guns are in Mexico is because the ATF — which the right wing hates — and the Obama administration — ditto — screwed up, not because we have lax gun control laws which let anyone buy guns.
If the ATF screwed this up (the idea was to follow the guns and arrest people higher on the cartel food chain), it makes sense to hold those who were responsible accountable, if only to make sure operations are better planned in the future.
But Issa wasn't able to control the message as well as he wanted. Tens of thousands of U.S. guns make it into Mexico illegally every year because of our lax gun control laws, so the thousand-or-so from the ATF operation are a drop in the bucket. They aren't the problem. And to Issa's dismay, the real illegal-guns-flowing-into-Mexico story is making it into the news cycle.
How bad is it for Issa? Some of his hand picked witnesses have gone off their talking points and said they deplore the lax gun laws, one commenting that you can buy a gun and leave less of a paper trail than if you buy some cold medicines. So Issa began forbidding witnesses from going off topic, which translates to: No one can say anything Issa doesn't want to hear.
How bad is it for the pro-gun lobby? Fox News has carried stories about a conspiracy by the ATF to botch "Operation Fast and Furious" to start the ball rolling for stricter gun laws. Really. I'm not kidding. Somehow, I guess, the ATF tricked Issa into holding the hearings. That would either make the ATF diabolically clever or Issa amazingly stupid.
The Democratic minority on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is holding the hearings, has decided to play its hand and demand the right to call its own witnesses. In a letter addressed to Darrell Issa, the Dems cited House rule XI, clause 2(j)(1) to:
. . . request a hearing to call witnesses selected by the Minority to testify with respect to today's hearing.
The letter is signed by 14 of the 17 Democrats on the committee.
Time will tell if Issa has outfoxed himself. Polls show the majority in the country want stricter gun control laws. People rightly fear guns in the hands of gun runners coming in through Mexico, and they can't like the idea that Al Qaeda is recommending its U.S. followers take advantage of the gun show loophole to get weapons.
Some day, we may have to thank Issa for inadvertantly pushing gun control legislation forward.
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Please, please, AZpatriot, out of respect for this poor old retired English teachers’ nerves — please spell your childish poo poo words correctly. Four times, and wrong every time. You’re a disgrace to everyone who ever wrote on a bathroom wall.
And speaking of childish, “libtard” is so . . . so much the kind of thing I’d expect from someone who misspells his poo poo word wrong four times.
Nice “Spin” on the story. If it smells like a terd and looks like a terd your probably safe assuming its a terd. The DOJ stonewalling this investigation stinks. The dead Mexican bodies and LE agents found with ATF walked weapons looks awful. SOOO I guess you libtards have a Watergate/ Iran-Contra terd in your lap. ENJOY