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A Point Without Partisanship — A Scandal Everyone Should Be Concerned About

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  September 21st, 2011 at 04:45 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

With the exception of CBS News, few media outlets have paid much attention to Operation Gun Walker a/k/a “Fast and Furious,” which has no relation to Vin Diesel.

The lack of media attention may be about to change. This is a huge and troublesome scandal. The left is, I think, afraid to touch it because of just how far up within the Obama Justice Department the scandal appears to go. The right has been focused more on other fights. The media is focused elsewhere. But the wind is shifting. Without throwing any partisan punches, let me just objectively get in to this business and why the left, the right, and the media should be paying attention.

I wrote about Operation Gun Walker back in March. In short, the ATF allowed Mexican drug lords to buy guns in the United States and walk them across the Mexican border. The too clever by half theory was that the American government would be able to then track the guns via their serial numbers and paint a picture of drug cartel activity by where the guns showed up.

The federal government never advised Mexico nor sought Mexico’s permission. Perversely, the ATF reported decided to then use the gun sales it authorized as evidence that the federal government needed more gun regulations.

As you might expect, the whole operation blew up in the ATF’s face. Using a Gun Walker gun, Mexican drug lords killed an American border patrol agent. Recently another murder on this side of the border turned up tied to a Gun Walker gun.

New evidence in the investigation conservative shows more than 200 murders linked to Operation Gun Walker guns.

Now, even more damning evidence is showing up in the form of secret recordings obtained by CBS News. According to the tapes, made between ATF Agent Hope MacAllister and a gun dealer named Andre Howard, Agent MacAllister admitted she had suggested the ATF hire a private investigator to dig up dirt on U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley to persuade Grassley to stop investigating the ATF.

Now forget all the partisan points for a minute. We have more than 200 deaths attributed to this operation and an ATF agent on tape saying she thought the ATF needed to dig up dirt on a U.S. Senator to stop him from investigating the ATF. At some point we all, left, right, and center, need to recognize when the inmates have taken over the asylum.

This is the federal bureaucracy out of control and it needs a brighter spotlight on it.

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COMMENTS

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  • jlsankot

    I’ve been following this on Pajamas Media since you first wrote about it.

    This administration thinks it can get away with whatever it wants in order to get the upper hand over the people of this great nation.

    I quit watching any of the major news networks several months ago and am happy to hear CBS (or anyone, for that matter) is broadcasting this to the public.

  • nunleigh

    when he told Sarah Brady during an impromptu WH meeting (no teleprompter), not to worry about gun control laws because he was working on it under the radar? She immediately and proudly told reporters about the meeting and Obama’s comments. I would love to hear a real reporter ask Obama about this comment. He would either have to call her a senile liar or come up with an explanation of exactly what under the radar operation he was referring to. I believe he was aware of the ATF program to manufacture his and Hillary Clinton’s false 2009 claim that 90% of the guns confiscated in Mexico were being purchased in the United States. Who are these people? God help us.

  • anjinconsulting

    The current adminsitration, filled with the spawn of the counter culture 60′s enlightenment crowd and their useful idiots in the MSM have become the government they were always fighting against. It is sad that we spent so much effort and lost so many good people in far away places fighting communism only to have it metastasize domestically.

    If what you wrote is true, then the congress should be initiating the impeachment of Holder. Let the chips fall where they may and if it ends up in the White House so be it. The very legitimacy of the federal government is at stake.

  • vidyohs

    Some of us might remember that the accusation against the ATF as being out of control and acting in self interest to avoid being dissolved and absorbed into the FBI was the impetus for the attack on the Branch Davidian compound at Mt. Carmel near Waco, Texas. That was supposed to be the big coup that proved the need for the ATF. In support of this claim is the fact that the ATF bally-hooed the reason for the attack was that the Branch Davidian were converting semi-auto weapons into illegal full-auto weapons and selling them. A claim quickly proven to be a lie, which necessitated a string of further lies until it was claimed child molestation was the crime.

    The whole government can’t be trusted.

  • beach91

    n/t

  • beach91

    This is a pure ‘human’ perspective and not a political one. I am glad CBS is actually looking into it even if only on a small scale. I don’t watch any of the network news cause I cannot stand their lack of intelligence and blatant hypocrisy. One thing I do know is that the truth will come out every time and that is what is happening now. The Obama admin is the most vile I have ever seen in my short life!

  • nunleigh

    has been the downfall of many powerful figures. I think this was Obama’s plan to push gun control. http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/sarah-brady-claims-obama-pushing-under-the-radar-gun-control

  • edintexas

    Unless you don’t consider the Fox News Channel a “media outlet”, you left out one which has been covering this story for some time now. As I don’t watch CBS, I can’t compare coverage, nor can I say which entity started their coverage first.

  • edintexas

    The idea of dissolving ATF and merging with another Federal Law Enforcement Agency has cropped up periodically for decades. It has never happened, and part of the reason dates back to the formation of the new firearms function within Treasury. From an entity with a responsibility for taxes related to alcohol and the 1934 National Firearms Act, Treasury suddenly had a much, much larger law enforcement function to staff. Many of the “new hires” were “street cops”, and many of those came from departments more than happy to see them leave. When the idea of “curing” the propensity for violation of the law by ATF Special Agents, through transfer of the function to a traditional Federal Law Enforcement Agency, the effort always failed because the Congress didn’t want the complications of dismissing all those (now) career employees and the other Federal Agency refused to take the ATF employees.

    Based on the few ATF Agents I personally knew over many years, the Field office personnel have improved at ATF, with some problematic personnel still present. But the senior management, and the overall Agency atmosphere, are still a long way from what a professional law enforcement agency should be.

  • jtlfromfredmd

    MSM. Any info that I have read on this story has been through RS. I believe that Congress should stop, dead in its tracks, and bring this entire situation to light. To not do so would be a dereliction of duty. If, and I repeat, IF, any of this is true then it is time to get this investigation into high gear. Then, maybe, it can slow down this roughshod administration. Congress had better damn sight do their job!

  • claylundy

    Do you ever wonder if maybe they have been told to keep their mouths shut and their families will stay OK?

  • johnt

    This is a good indicator, but there is no bottom to their foulness.
    To listen to the nuts whine about Fox News is to be reminded of their totalitarian compulsions, 100% control.
    I doubt that agent McAllister was acting on her own, tramp though she is. This is standard Democratic tactics, ne argument, no policies, and no decency. Just Smear, You can bet your last dollar that the the now silent media would have covered that part of the story. Dumb, Know when to cut Obama adrift, when to abandon a lost cause, then pick another moral loser to support.

  • http://www.dhstation.com mayrfortuna

    Mr. Erickson?

    I address you with utmost respect, but disappointed.

    I really don?t know, why is it that you American Conservatives always seem to worry about “not being partisan”…

    Is it that you are so much embedded with political correctness that you have to look “not partisan” to make a serious point?

    Allow me to say Mr. Erickson, Conservatism needs to be REENFORCED, NOT APOLOGIZED FOR.

    If you American Conservatives acted as partisan as this hideous left you have, by now you would be in droves in parade over the Capitol asking for Obamas Resignation on this SCANDAL, and Holders Head impaled as reward, but no, instead, you are trying to be not “partisan”…

  • 4suramcan

    let ‘em have it. Seems all they do is talk. no action. the more we allow them to get away with, the more they will do, until their mission is accomplished.

  • 4suramcan

    it may have come to this. And still we watch, and do nothing. They have it figured out, to the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s

  • popster

    it is just plain stupidity and absolutely illegal. For any portion of the media to think that this is not on par with everything else, happening in this land, is almost as bad as the act itself.
    Then we get to the deflecting, covering up, and out and out lying this has the potential to be an enormous scandal. I do not see many individuals in the administration walking away from this unscathed.

  • irishgirl

    on Townhall. They’ve had reports on this almost daily, certainly weekly. It appears not only CBS but ABC are also finally starting to report (although I never watch MSM). This is huge with potential of being another Watergate. Heads should roll over this.

  • mutantone

    I want to know what happened tot he weapons let lose out of Florida the last I heard those went to American gangs inside the United States and thus far more of a danger than those shipped to Mexico

  • bk

    We’re always hearing about how the administration wants to do exactly what it’s doing that hacks people off, but wants to change their “perception” of it. It’s sort of like saying “I’m still going to rape you, but I’ll spread some Vaseline first. Does that make it all better?”

    If the people like Congresscritters and the media who are supposed to act as checks against an imperial President are cowed into (preferably) cooperation or (at worst) silence, then it makes the administration’s job of spinning people’s perceptions much easier.

  • ihateliberals

    since she wants the US to forgo the 2nd amendment and allow total removal of all hand guns as decreed by the UN. I don’t think Obama is smart enough to think this up on his own. Hilary on the other hand is very devious and would think she is powerful enough to get away with it. I am sickened that an American had to die over this but happy that it has backfired in the DOJ’s, DHS and Hilary’s faces. If we don’t get rif os this bunch in 2012 we are doomed. four more years of these guys in a lame duck situation wil be devastating to our country. this may occur to the point that there won’t be any 2016 elections.

  • amr

    The WaPo sent reporters last year to investigate the guns going to Mexico. The government snookered them, at least I hope that was what happened, and in December 2010 they reported that illegal sales by gun dealers was the cause. Yes, that was true, but ATF was pushing the dealers to do so and the FBI was covering the background checks needed for the sales.

    Now we all know the WaPo is a liberal newspaper, but if the government had done that to me, regardless of my beliefs, and I had that bully pulpit, I would crucify those who lied to my people and caused me to print a lie. I don’t believe that the WaPo has reacted in such a manner, thus I am forced to believe that they will cover for this administration regardless of what it does.

    In Watergate the WaPo was relentless in pursuing the truth about a 3rd rate burglary that was covered up by the President. Now we see deaths in Mexico by our governments actions, deaths of federal agents and these guns retuning to the US being used in crimes, yet the liberal media in America basically ignores it. We have more than the run running in Arizona; there was an ATF effort in Dallas and a State Department one in the Dallas area too, one to MS-13 in Honduras from Florida and now Gangrunner in Indiana. Where are the arrests?!!!

    One committee in congress is investigating it and the media is quiet. I lived through Watergate in my later twenties and this is much, much worse, but this time it is a Democrat. So it is “move on, nothing to see here.” Disgusting.

  • bs61

    Yet, I haven’t heard anything more on that for a couple of months now, so hopefully someone in the news is investigating!

  • acat

    since that would effectively prevent her from replacing Obama on the Dem ticket….

    Mew

  • med151

    This story broke a year ago or more.

    The election is just over 13 months away.

    Holder and the DOJ can drag this out for 2 -3 years (just a guess) which puts it well beyond 2012.

    It has all the appearance of a non-issue.

    The number of felonies committed in such an operation goes into the thousands to tens of thousands. Yet no charges have been brought, no criminal case. This operation has been admitted to by ATF agents who were disgusted by it.

    The band plays on…

  • funwithknives

    as far as this. Think back on Woodrow Wilson’s attacks on Detractors, the Red Scares of the 50′s, or Wholesale Neisei relocations. Remember Clinton’s IRS abuses and over-reaches? Jim Crow laws, nor gun control, were Republican-Sourced, now were they?
    Add to the fact that any in media,who want to keep their positions and to stay employed, surely would create few waves, as this would be the line of least resistance. Print media consolidates and gets smaller all the time, and job seekers have to be ever more inventive to find another job,in thier selected profession. No attention,& no aspersions cast on them. If Juan Williams would not have had his FNC lifeline, where would he be,Right Now? one thing’s for sure , a lot lower on the food chain.
    This might be a reach, but maybe we should give the head-down crowd some credit. Keeping a job could be called a plus, nowadays.( Remember, I said it might be a reach)

  • http://www.marklaiminger.org Lammo

    is that this was the goal all along:

    “Perversely, the ATF reported(ly) decided to then use the gun sales it authorized as evidence that the federal government needed more gun regulations.” Since the numbers they already had (“90%”) were so obviously a gross exaggeration, they had to do something to make those numbers “real”.

    There are a whole bunch of people who belong in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits over this, up to and including Eric Holder (who already belonged there) but I’m not going to hold my breath.

  • funwithknives

    to show where you stand. As you seem to be, I get really ticked when conservatives soft peddle vital issues.It shows seeming weakness, and never appears to get any better. but I think Erick shows a little class, with this Tact.
    He could come on strong , but we all share the outrage of this travesty.what has occurred here is flagrant abuse of our Republic’s laws and what we{here} all stand for. It doesn’t mean Erick or anyone should simply act-out, as so many left of center so often do.
    When I worked in constrution, I always gravitated to the Quiet ,self-assured Operators and workers , as they proved by doing, not talking up their abilities. In this vein, I see little harm in Erick’s choices of wording and his perceived lack of stridentcy. He’s got his method, just as you have yours. Start a diary if impact, is what you seek. This site appears to be the proverbial Marketplace of Ideas, so go to it.
    (He’s got his and You got yours. Ain’t it grand?)

  • soljerblue

    has been covering the story for some time. Maybe not to the extent that CBS has, but they have been on it.

    There will come a momentwhen something pops and this story will blow like a powder keg attached to a slow burning fuse. It always happens.

    The closer it gets to November 2012 before it goes up like Vesuvius, the better — say, oh, I don’t know — right after Labor Day next year.

  • Common_Cents

    First we have to get real conservatives in the R party tho.

  • soljerblue

    actually surfaced on a weblog kept by an old aquaintance. Then Senator Chuck Grassley picked it up, as did Darryl Issa in the House. CBSInvestigates then took it public when a former Phoenix ATF agent blew the whistle in an on-air interview.

    As a former (recovering) journalist, I have to disagree with those who say the story will never blow up into a raging controversy. Incubation times vary on stories tremendously, and this one is no exception. This one seems to me to be closer to critical mass than may be readily apparent. As long as CBS and Fox don’t give up on it, as long as Issa and Grassley keep chipping away at it, something will eventually give.

    Think back on other stories — Watergate took three years to blow Nixon out of the WH. Often it is that stories mature AROUND the MSM until they can’t ignore it any longer. Think Drudge and the blue dress, or the John Edwards cheating story.

    The story is very much percolating out there, and because the MSM isn’t pounding it daily across the board doesn’t mean people haven’t noticed.

  • ontime

    My congrats to two stand up gentlement, Senators Issa and Grassley for staying the course and not being intimidated by this adminstration and it’s henchmen. They are gathering evidence, people are ratting out the crooked government people and there will be a reckoning. It will not bring back those who are now dead or repair those who have been maimed or wounded but some justice will come and let’s all hope it brings down the top part.

  • freemanja1991

    LOL! wow the most down to earth Senator, the proof is in the first time I meet him!

  • csinate

    http://secondamendmentwarrior.webs.com