Our Lawless Unjustice Department

I have only read excerpts so far of the long awaited IG report on the Fast and Furious scandal, but the Gun Owners of America done a more complete analysis, and their findings are interesting to be sure. Meanwhile the media is reporting that Holder has been cleared. This report from CBS is fairly typical.

I was struck that nobody seems to be holding Eric Holder to the "reasonable man" standard. In this case, the reasonable man standard would ask "what would a reasonable Attorney General do in such a situation?" Certainly, a "reasonable" Attorney General would have read any memorandums coming to him. A "reasonable" Attorney General might decide that the guns could not be reasonably traced and fired some individuals, while taking administrative action against others. A "reasonable" Attorney General would have put an immediate stop to the gun walking as soon as guns were lost, and not resumed until the guns could be traced to the ultimate buyer. A "reasonable" Attorney General"...but we are not dealing with a "reasonable" Attorney General, are we? No, in this case, we are dealing with an official who wanted to maintain "plausible deniability" for actions of his subordinates. But that brings us to the next thing.

When one is in charge of a department, one has to accept responsibility for the actions of one's subordinates, whether or not those actions were personally known. That's because as a "reasonable" Attorney General, one would be expected to have procedures in place to ensure one knows what goes on in one's department.  Even if the actions of those subordinates truly was to run a sting operation that went horrible wrong, and even if Holder knew absolutely nothing about what was going on with Fast and Furious by his subordinates, it speaks to his poor judgement and poor management skills that he appointed and allowed to operate unsupervised, people who would break the law to enforce the law.

M. Catherine Evans had it right at the American Thinker where she penned Guilty as Sin, Free as a Bird. Ms. Evans writes:

That the AG didn't know about this far reaching program before February 2011 is only believable if one concedes Holder is a bumbling novice unfamiliar with the rule of law. Holder is no rookie. He's been breaking the rules for a long time as chronicled by many writers here at American Thinker...

Skirting the rules is one thing, but this was lawlessness on a massive scale, that resulted in the murders of perhaps 300 Mexicans and at least two Federal Agents. That sort of thing can not stand.