The “Fast and Furious” debacle should have been nothing more than a footnote in the annals of the Justice Department.
It was a dubious policy that was badly executed and led to the firing of some low-level employees. Congress is right to investigate, though the full-on assault that this has turned into, fueling wall-to-wall Fox News coverage, offers a glimpse into the depredations of our political culture. The GOP wants to damage the president. Attorney General Eric Holder obliges by being less than forthcoming. The Republicans pounce and Contempt of Congress charges follow. The president reacts with a flimsy declaration of executive privilege, turning a minor blip into a full-bore constitutional battle.
Let me be clear: The GOP is overplaying this failure into a scandal, though they are right to investigate how the whole thing went down. Holder should cooperate, but the GOP needs to be respectful of him and his office, something the party has seemed unwilling to be. And, finally, the president should stay out of it. There is no privilege here and Congress has an investigative responsibility under the constitution. As Jennifer Rubin, who writes the Post’s Right Turn blog, points out,
The defense of Obama’s flimsy executive privilege claim is bad politics and bad law (unlike Obama’s immigration edict, which is good politics and bad law). The impulse in politics is to circle the wagons whenever “your side” is attacked. Hence the left-wing blogosphere and congressional Democrats, who regard Republican executive imperialism as akin to an anti-democratic coup, find nothing wrong with the administration’s stonewalling. This is the triumph of political partisanship over principle. Liberals certainly don’t believe in the flimsy use of executive privilege, except, of course, if Obama is wielding the privilege and there’s an election coming up.
I’m not at all impressed with the argument that Obama is entitled to stiff Congress because House Republicans are playing politics. That sure wasn’t the Watergate or Iran-Contra or Valerie Plame standard. Democrats wanted to get Nixon, Reagan and Bush in those instances, but that partisan motive wasn’t germane, was it?
This hyper-partisanship, which has infected both parties (though the GOP’s partisan fever runs much hotter), is like sugar in the gas tank of American democracy. Along with the obscene amount of money and lack of accountability for donors, government has ground to a halt at the hands of politicians more concerned about their party brand than making things better for Americans.
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Hank Kalet 