Look Into My Eyes And Believe

This past week, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared again before the House Oversight Committee. During that hearing, he attempted to hypnotize the Republican majority members into ignoring the 500 pound gorilla in the room (Operation Fast and Furious) and instead to concentrate on Holder’s many accomplishments in office.

This was a new tactic for Holder, since mounting evidence seemed to disprove his claim that he knew nothing about the operation. Apparently, Republicans are not highly-susceptible to the new Mesmer’s intense gaze. Rep. Ann Buerdle (R-New York) chose instead to produce a video of the earlier testimony of the family of murdered Border Agent Brian Terry. Terry was shot down by Mexican cartel members using weapons purchased during the Fast and Furious fiasco.

Buerdle simply couldn’t be charmed by Holder’s hypnotic eyes and sleep-inducing voice. After showing the video, she asked Holder: “How many more Border Patrol agents would have to die as a part of Operation Fast and Furious for you to take responsibility?”

Holder was unable to dodge the question entirely, but continued his previous pattern of refusing to use Brian Terry’s name, preferring to refer to him as “the Border Agent” or “that Agent” so he didn’t have to admit that a real human being had been brutally murdered as a result of Holder’s negligence and incompetence.

Having failed to hypnotize the Republicans, he did seem to have hypnotized himself. Never mind “that agent.” The real victim of Fast and Furious is Holder himself, with Republicans unfairly piling on. The Democrats pleaded with him not to answer Buerdle’s questions. He even ignored the sage wisdom of the Al Gore defense: “I didn’t do it, and I’ll never do it again.” Holder simply launched into a tear-jerking “poor me” performance.

Says Holder: “You know I should be held accountable for certainly my role in whatever I did or didn’t do in connection with the supervision of Fast and Furious. But, yeah, I’m Attorney General of the United States, and I should also be held accountable and perhaps even given some credit—imagine that—given some credit for the things this Justice Department has done under my leadership whether it deals with national security, revitalizing antitrust, revitalizing civil rights enforcement efforts, so one has to balance all of these things.”

OK, Mr. Attorney General, let’s look at a few of your accomplishments. In the voting rights arena, you dismissed already-proven charges against Black Panthers who intimidated white voters at the polls in Philadelphia. But on the other hand, you have used your power under the Voting Rights Act to quash redistricting in North Carolina and Texas because it might favor Republicans. In at least one of those cases, under an Act of Congress designed solely to eliminate racial discrimination, the vast majority of the voters are black in the district in question. You chose to prevent the redistricting because the locals wanted to make partisan Democratic offices into nonpartisan offices.

As for religious freedom, you have thrown your full support behind the HHS Secretary’s requirement that Catholic institutions provide free birth control and abortifacient drugs despite the strong objection of the Catholic Church. And that is merely one facet of your perpetual defenses of the unconstitutional mandates of Obamacare. In your pursuit of legalization of unconstitutional power-grabs by the Obama executive branch and its monomaniacal czars, you have written Article One and the Tenth Amendment out of the Constitution entirely.

There are even indications, unproven so far, that Fast and Furious was expanded on your watch to accomplish the goal in which it did ultimately succeed. You forgot the likely and foreseeable but unintended consequences. The indication is that you approved the operation for the purpose of getting weapons into the hands of criminals so you could then pass massive gun-control legislation to stop the sales of weapons that you and your boss don’t want in the hands of mere American citizens. Even I don’t believe that you intended for “that agent” to be murdered, but that was the result nevertheless.

Here is more of Holder’s “poor me” recitation: “I’m not claiming to be a perfect person or a perfect attorney general. I get up every day and try to do the best job that I can. I have faith in the people that work in the department, and you know that kind of question [referring to Buerkle’s grilling], I think is frankly, and again respectfully, I think that’s beneath a member of Congress.”

And so you see, dear reader, that the real villain here is Buerkle (and her Republican colleagues). After all, the AG was just doing his job and was only following orders. Seems we’ve heard that somewhere before. I should also add that Eric Holder is the last person on earth who should be deciding what is “beneath” a member of Congress. His standards are not those of a decent and fair-minded official of the law, but rather the street thuggishness of a Chicago South Side politician who will attempt to achieve his agenda by any means necessary.