The Fast and Furious scandal is turning into President Obama's Watergate By Tim Stanley US politics Last updated: June 21st, 2012 Fast and furious hasnât been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. Itâs estimated that the US government effectively supplied 1,608 weapons to criminals. Aside from putting American citizens in danger, the AFT also supplied what now amounts to a civil war within Mexico. On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the âgun walkingâ operation â documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come.Executive privilege is usually associated with protecting information that passes through the Oval Office. What did the documents reveal about Obamaâs association with the operation? It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President. A lot of conservatives are writing at the moment that not only is Obama turning into Nixon Mark II, but Obama is worse because no one actually got killed during Watergate. The comparison is based on the myth that Nixon ordered the Watergate break in and thatâs what he eventually had to resign over. But thatâs not true. Nixonâs guilt was in trying to pervert the course of justice by persuading the FBI to drop its investigation of the crime. Mistake number one, then, was to involve the White House in covering up the errors of a separate, autonomous political department. Mistake number two was that when Congress discovered that evidence about the scandal might be recorded on the White House bugging system, Nixon invoked executive privilege to protect the tapes. In both cases, it was the cover up that destroyed Tricky Dick â not the original crime. And, forty years later almost to the day, here we have Obama making the same mistake. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/t...l-is-turning-into-president-obamas-watergate/ What are you trying to hide, OBAMA.
There has been some jumping the gun in this case.. but rep Issa was on Greta Van busted face's show last night and he said he had met privately with Holder the previous evening (2 nights ago) where holder told him he could have what he wanted IF he dropped the investigation. Obviously Issa wanted to know why and the response he got was 'it would be embarrassing'. Now it may be something small but then why the plead to obama to assert executive privilege? it's hard to believe that someone could be so vain that they would attempt to save face by misleading (lying to) Congress AND it is even harder to believe that obama would go to this length just to prevent holder from being embarrassed.. isn't it? Where there's smoke there's fire - if they have nothing to hide they would be better served getting it over with as they are raising suspicion RIGHT NOW. Also, there was a good line yesterday about this admin leaking info that should be kept secret and keeping info secret that should be leaked.
They are hiding something in those documents. But, it doesn't matter what. Obama has now put his neck in the noose and is preparing to jump. Those big egos will bring them down every time.
An odd choice of words for someone who voted for Mr. "Hope and Change" actually expecting to get any.
I wouldn't get my hopes up. The media is going to treat this as "extremist partisan republicans attack courageous Attorney general, crusader for civil rights." The democrats have already begun circling the wagons, lead by wagon master Nancy Pelosi. She actually said the people after Holder were part of a conspiracy to deny voting rights and were mad at him because he acted to prevent it. When you can state that as your worldview and no one in the media laughs, you don't have much to worry about. The lessons of Watergate(and the Clinton impeachment) are twofold. One, if the media is totally obssessed with bringing down someone they have hated for decades, they will seize on anything, no matter how trivial and try to blow it up into a scandal. Two, if the president's party is filled with backstabbing cowards, they may succeed. Otherwise, they will fail. The democrats and Washington Post were able to nullify a recent election and drive Nixon from power, just as they tried to do to Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Times were far different then however. There was no alternative conservative media, and congress was filled with cowardly republican moderates who failed to back their president. With Clinton, there was a moment in which if a couple of prominent democrats had stepped forward and said, he has disgraced the office and should resign, it would have been all over. They didn't. Instead, they mounted a scorched earth defense. Clinton survived, but ironically, the guy who would have taken over and undoubtedly been elected to two terms, Al Gore, was left out in the cold.
One other thing. As for the ridiculous executive privilege claim, it is being asserted for the same reasosn Clinton misappled it repeatedly, to stall. By the time a court rules on it and it is appealed, the election will be over. The media are not ever going to criticize obama for abusing executive privilege, even though they went crazy when Nixon asserted it. Just like they went nuts over Valery Plame, but consider the avalance of national security leaks now to be irrelevant.