Darrell Issa calls for special prosecutor on Fast & Furious.

UPDATE: Carol Greenberg of Conservative Outlooks – who was on the original call – reported that Issa did not quite call for a special prosecutor.  This may be a nuance issue on Issa’s part: I was not able to participate in this particular call myself, so I couldn’t say authoritatively.

Yes, my brothers and sisters: it’s that magical time in an administration where the old tradition is observed of cursing Jimmy Carter’s bones and liver for signing the Independent Counsel Act.  Because Darrell Issa called for a special prosecutor earlier this week:

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa on Tuesday called for a special prosecutor to investigate the growing “Fast and Furious” scandal, in which the Obama administration allowed guns to walk to Mexico, where they fell into the hands of drug lords and were found at the murder scene of at least one U.S. border agent.

Issa complained in a conference call that, “there is ongoing cover up of a pattern of wrongdoing that can’t be explained by any ordinary people (who tried) to do the right thing but made a mistake.”

(More here and here) Entertainingly, Attorney General Eric Holder would be the one who would have to appoint the person investigating… him; even more entertainingly, this actually makes it more difficult for Holder to stonewall things.  It’s irrelevant, in fact, that Barack Obama will not want an independent investigation into Operation Fast & Furious*: it is a truth that no administration ever likes to appoint a special prosecutor.  This is mostly because appointing a special prosecutor is like pulling the pin on a hand grenade and throwing the grenade down a ventilation shaft: you don’t know what’s going to go BOOM, but something will.  And the BOOM never benefits the party in power, which is why the ICA is simultaneously loathed and left alone.  Because what goes around, comes around; and the hypocrisy on hating/supporting the practice is so widespread and persuasive that in an odd sort of way it stops being hypocritical.  It’s all very Orwellian.

So.  Let’s get that special prosecutor up and running!  I mean, if Eric Holder and Barack Obama are truly innocent then they have nothing to worry about: only the guilty should fear transparency, right?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Short version: The US government deliberately let guns get run into Mexico, where they were promptly lost to sight until Mexican narco-terrorist groups started using them to kill people.  The Mexican government, in particular, is not amused.