Dave Kopel asks whether Obama’s assertion of executive privilege is valid. Instapundit has a few links on the scandal, including one from the Washington Post. Investors Business Daily has run an article stating that the Executive Privilege has the stench of cover-up. Wall Street Journal is running an op-ed. More from the Washington Post. Of course, the WaPo is also offering up some apologia on behalf of Eric Holder.
The only thing I can figure in all this is that Obama thinks taking this up a notch will result in him ending up the victor in the court of public opinion. This scandal was quite easily explained away as incompetence, but the invoking of executive privilege could lead many to question what the White House and Holder have to hide. If this was hatched by the Phoenix office, and everyone involved fired or relocated, then there shouldn’t be an issue with a document release to Congress.
Neal Boortz is finally describing F&F on his show today. And, he’s getting most of the details correct (as we know them).
He’s ALSO calling out the motivations behind F&F, and making a clear distinction from Wide Receiver (to counter the “Bush did it too!” crowd).
I love how everybody cares all of a sudden about executive privilege, as if it wasn’t an issue when Bush was president.
I remember reading somewhere that the very first Congress subpoenaed George Washington and his cabinet, and nobody ever questioned their authority to do so.
Edit to add that I believe Congress was able to compel the executive to testify back then. That was the main point.
The problem is that whatever arguments there are for executive privilege, it is never a basis for refusing an investigation into criminal activity, and it doesn’t matter if it is running guns to Mexico, or Iran, or what enhanced interrogation techniques the government is using.
If whatever the executive branch wants to keep secret is really in the national interest, I have some confidence that most members of Congress will recognize that.
Remember back in 2009… A few months into the admin. It was on the lips of most every official. Even Hillary. “There is a problem with gun running into Mexico.” Prepping the narrative back then.
But you are right. Blow that off and people will forget about it, expecially when the press is on the admin’s side. They could have worked that angle of ‘Phoenix ATF is incompetent’ when the project went pear shaped. Pensions and sinecure to all the folks that might talk about any directions from on high.
Maybe they didn’t think they could control leaks from the lower level coming back to bite them in the butt and now we have THIS, today. Too much paper trail.
When they make the documentary, they should include all that “too much gun running into Mexico” clips from 2009.
One issue with “it’s the Phoenix ATF office’s fault” is that I’ve read at least a little bit of evidence that another office in Texas was possibly implicated (Laredo I think).
I do think this will be a good test of the new media’s power, as in “where is it right now?” Growing stronger all the time, sure, but we don’t really know, do we?
My wife told me about interesting point last night (I think she read it from some other blog): because the Media has been complicit in avoiding reporting about this scandal, now that it’s come to a vote on contempt, and they feel obligated to report on it, it’s going to hurt Obama. How bad is hard to say–but the fact remains that everyone could have known this a year ago, so it would be a non-issue today, rather than have it come up in Election Season.
Adding Executive Privelege to the mix certainly isn’t helping any!
Will this leave a dent in Obama’s Re-election? It’s hard to say. But it’s certain that the timing of it all isn’t helping him!
I’m sure it’ll leave a dent (hey, some of us remember Watergate :-), the question is, how big of a dent?
Could the Executive Privilege move the timing out passed November? I still can’t grasp why President Obama would do this? It is only going to strengthen the NRA position between now and election. Wild turn of events I didn’t see coming, that’s for sure!
Ah, that’s another reason to have a reasonable hope the whole House will vote for contempt, the NRA is scoring this vote. So failure is likely only if there are enough squishy Republicans who don’t care about their status with gunowners in the next election.