Originally posted at Big Government
In light of the “Fast and Furious” fiasco, the Obama administration is embarrassing itself whenever it tries to convince the public that on issues like healthcare and immigration reform, the government is well equipped to ensure the safety of the American people.
Presently, a scandal surrounding the White House alleges that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) purposely allowed Mexican drug cartel gang members to gain possession of illegal weaponry on the US side of the border. Despite his denials, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are suspected of knowing about the effort whose intent was to track gunrunning kingpins by way of a “tactic known as ‘letting guns walk.’”
Gun walking involved the feds standing by and doing nothing while weapons such as “an antiaircraftmachine gun, a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher” were loaded into trunks by suspected Mexican straw purchasers. The illegal acquisition of the weapons was overlooked, with the intent to use the guns as a pseudo-GPS system to track down and overtake dangerous Mexican drug cartels.
The problem is, those same guns eventually turned up at murder scenes alongside the bodies of two dead Border Patrol agents, Jamie Zapata and Brian Terry, not to mention the innumerable Mexicans killed in drug wars with guns smuggled in from Arizona.
In a letter to members of Congress, Eric Holder defended his lack of familiarity with the controversial undertaking, maintaining that he had “no recollection of knowing about the operation, called ‘Fast and Furious,’ or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.”
Some members of Congress believe Eric Holder had prior knowledge of the gun-walking operation. If the Attorney General continues to maintain he was unaware of the debacle, it must be because he believes that plausible deniability protects and benefits the political future of both himself and the President of the United States.
But Mr. Holder is misguided, because while it would be horrifying to find out he possessed foreknowledge of the failed operation, what would be even worse for big government progressives would be to find out that the Attorney General is actually telling the truth.
Holder not knowing about “Fast and Furious” proves that an Obama appointee’s poor administrative oversight cost the lives of two Americans who died in service to their country, which underscores the potential for massive bureaucratic failures now and in the future.
Both Obama’s and Holder’s attempts to deny complicity serve to verify that every endeavor this administration undertakes threatens more and more innocent people, either through outright incompetency or shameless disregard for human life.
Eric Holder’s actions and denials may be an attempt at feigning innocence, but such efforts undermine Obama’s unrelenting attempts to convince and reassure the nation to entrust government bureaucrats with even larger life-and-death decisions.
Think about it: How can an administration vow to be competent enough to handle the administrative oversight of health care reform for a population of 300 million people if it can’t monitor a small number of guns?
Whether the Attorney General gave his approbation or he didn’t, to track criminals by employing the harebrained idea that murderers could be traced when dead bodies float up in the Rio Grande ultimately affects the credibility of Obama’s future big government plans for America.
The felonious lunacy of “Fast and Furious” exposes the Obama administration’s pervasive impotence on every level. Regardless of how President Obama tries to give surety to the American public, it’s obvious that a group unable to tie their own shoes is in no position to run a health care program slated to cost trillions and affect hundreds of millions Americans over the next 10 years.
Add to the President’s refusal to address dangerous open borders; his favoritism toward illegal aliens living unlawfully in America; and the pursuit of repeated lawsuits against states trying to defend themselves against hostile invasion, and the situation gets still more precarious.
Holder and Obama testifying to being clueless about a poorly thought-out, relatively small-scale yet incredibly dangerous operation indicates that any Obama endeavor larger than “Fast and Furious” could eventually end up exponentially costing more lives. So how can this administration vouch for immigration reform involving 13 million illegal aliens when they were unable to maintain control over 2,000 illegal guns?
Thus, as Darrell Issa (R-CA) presses Eric Holder to explain the tragedy of how two American border agents ended up in body bags, he may not realize he is doing the nation an even greater service. By getting to the bottom of the “Fast and Furious” controversy, Congressman Issa is reaffirming for a country under siege by an administration whose actions mimic those of armed enemies, that everything the Obama administration touches turns to disaster and one way or another ultimately ends up threatening our lives.
Judging by the numbers alone, “Fast and Furious” proves that an administration who failed to control a program that involved a couple of thousand guns should not be trusted with the healthcare oversight for 300 million Americans. Nor should Obama continue to be allowed to falsely assure the American public that 13 million illegal aliens pose little or no danger to our nation or its people. Lest we forget, gun walking was supposed to prevent crime, not cause it.
If the good intentions surrounding the giving of guns to criminals failed so miserably, it stands to reason that extending government largesse in the form of health care and immigration reform also carries with it the explosive potential to result in the “Fast and Furious” destruction of the entire nation.
Jeannie DeAngelis
Jeannie DeAngelis writes almost exclusively for American Thinker and has been published on the conservative website Pajamas Media, as well as hosting a blog. See Jeannie's Blog
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