Their Contempt Is Contemptible

So, the Republicans in the US House of Representatives have stamped their feet, held their breath and threw a little collective temper tantrum. The end result is that they found Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. I got news for them. Many people hold contempt for Congress.

Anyway, Holder won't be prosecuted, as is proper, since the whole hullabaloo is nothing more than a political stunt by the Republicans to try to smear President Obama during an election year and to cover their own NRA-funded asses.

Fortune has done quite the in-depth investigation into "Fast and Furious." Their findings show what a farce the Republican's contempt finding really is:

"Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false," says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS). A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa's committee.

The ATF's accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn't actually exist. "It gets back to something basic for me," says Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). "Terry was murdered, and guns from this operation were found at his murder site." A spokesman for Issa denies that politics has played a role in the congressman's actions and says "multiple individuals across the Justice Department's component agencies share responsibility for the failure that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious." Issa's spokesman asserts that even if ATF agents followed prosecutors' directives, "the practice is nonetheless gun walking." Attorneys for Dodson declined to comment on the record.

For its part, the ATF would not answer specific questions, citing ongoing investigations. But a spokesperson for the agency provided a written statement noting that the "ATF did not exercise proper oversight, planning or judgment in executing this case. We at ATF have accepted responsibility and have taken appropriate and decisive action to insure that these errors in oversight and judgment never occur again." The statement asserted that the "ATF has clarified its firearms transfer policy to focus on interdiction or early intervention to prevent the criminal acquisition, trafficking and misuse of firearms," and it cited changes in coordination and oversight at the ATF.

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

Do read the whole article for a fascinating, and horrifying, way that this as taken a life of its own, fabricated out of whole cloth.

Also worth the read is the overview of the Fortune article by Mother Jones.

When reading this, keep in mind that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) who is leading this mass tantrum, is also the the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

That means he is the one that could and should be calling Scott Walker back to Washington, D.C. to answer for his perjury before a Congressional committee, even as members of the same committee would like to see happen.

Amazingly, Issa denies there's any politics involved with his selective contempt.

Right.

It just so happens that he is going after the Democratic President Obama through his staff, based on nothing but a cover up by a rogue agent, but is not touching the Republican Walker even though he has videotaped evidence, but it's not political.
But if he's after Holder, and Obama, but not Walker, and it's not political, the only thing left is that he is doing it because of racial reasons.

Either way, the behavior of Congressional Republicans is what is truly contemptible.