What the report did not find was some kind of effort from the top to remake the facts or cover them up.
Ineptitude is not conspiracy. Nor is dysfunction. Or plain old human error.
To have heard conservatives tell the tale, the federal government’s gun-running operation dubbed “Fast and Furious” was some kind of deceit of the highest order, cloak-and-dagger stuff fit for a Tom Clancy novel.
Well, maybe not.
Eric HolderAn exhaustive, 471-page report from the Justice Department’s inspector general found that Fast and Furious was full of problems. It found fault with individuals, their actions and failings. A couple of them have left their posts, while others will likely be reassigned.
What it did not find, or even hint at, was some kind of conspiracy, some effort from the top to remake the facts or cover up the truth.
Attorney General Eric Holder has been the target of conservative yammerers and a handful in Congress who seem mostly to want to find something, anything, that would bring down the nation’s top legal official.
They haven’t found it. Not in Fast and Furious, and not anywhere else.
Fast and Furious was a 2009 operation that allowed the sale of illegal guns to low-level smugglers in the hope of having those sales lead authorities to those at the top of the ring.
It didn’t work. Not as planned, and not at all.
President Obama’s time in the White House has been remarkably free from scandal. Given the level of animus that many conservatives feel toward this president, this can only be because his administration has been operating largely above board, playing by the rules. But this doesn’t stop his enemies from continuing to find conspiracy no matter where they look.
They might wish to take a look at the inspector general’s findings to see what’s really been going on.
Sometimes a botched job is just a botched job.