If you don’t have time to read it, let me summarize: Eric Holder’s Justice Department’s attempts to utterly stonewall Congress’s investigation of Operation Fast & Furious has been done in a fashion that would, if done by any organization not aligned with the Obama administration, result in a series of raids and subpoenas by the Justice Department. The entire structure is rotten, from the top down, and Congress is rapidly approaching the point where criminal contempt citations of top officials (including the Attorney General) will be issued. Historically, that’s the point where the executive branch throws in its cards and goes along with the legislative branch.
But let me add this: I am not actually confident that Attorney General Holder and President Obama realize that they’re over a barrel, here. I know that a lot of people have been impatiently waiting for this story to hit the front page, stinks and all, but good scandals take time to ferment. If Congress is going to issue contempt citations because the Justice Department won’t give up documents, and if the administration lets them go through with it, there is absolutely no way that the media won’t go on a full-court press about the Attorney General being held in contempt by Congress. And before anybody thinks that this will be a net positive for the administration, let me remind you of something: people died because of administration incompetence, and the administration then tried to cover it up. That makes this particular scandal quite a bit different than just about every other Washingtonian scandal of the last forty years.
Shorter Moe Lane: chum in the water.
Via Instapundit.