Patterico's Pontifications

Rahm is laffinghizzonersazzoff about now, even when reminding ChiTown is within IL.

gary gulrud (d88477) — 12/9/2011 @ 4:40 am

That it will be a problem presupposes that the vast crowd that walks around in their American Idol/ Dancing With the Stars/The View induced dream state will actually give a rat’s.

Colonel Haiku (687f10) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:03 am

Wrong Patterico! This story has not been on the front page of the New York Times for 30 days in a row like say the Abu Ghraib story was.

It could be easily simplified by the press as well but it has been left as a vague one in which everyone has a point of view. The story could have and should have been rolling at full steam by now but it is only a little sideshow for conservative pundits to address.

The same can be said of the Solynra scandal. Had George Bush been president during these two scandals, the media would have had a field day.

What has the media focused on? Income inequality.

AZ Bob (7dbcdc) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:23 am

But it was the most politically charged session yet, as one Republican after another tore into the attorney general.

That’s the NY Times spin on the hearing. Ding!

AZ Bob (7dbcdc) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:35 am

NY Times says everyone has their own opinion:

In his opening statement, Mr. Holder suggested that critics were playing “politically motivated ‘gotcha’ games” and trying to “score political points.” In the question period he largely limited himself to objecting that various criticisms were “factually inaccurate” or unjustified, as lawmakers talked over his answers.

But Mr. Holder snapped near the very end, after Mr. Issa, who has been a leader of the Fast and Furious investigation, compared him to John Mitchell, the Nixon administration attorney general who went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.

“The reference to John Mitchell — think about that,” he said. “At some point, as they said in the McCarthy hearings, have you no shame?”

AZ Bob (7dbcdc) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:37 am

And we now know that McCarthy had the goods, and Welch was throwing smoke.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:43 am

Sensenbrenner brought up impeachment if the lack of cooperation continued and also said Lanny Breuer should be fired.

Charlie Gibson has still not heard of Fast and Furious.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 7:54 am

Racists

JD (554e77) — 12/9/2011 @ 8:07 am

Comment by Colonel Haiku — 12/9/2011 @ 7:03 am

Agreed. The only people who will actually care about F&F or Solyndra are the people who knew by the second Tuesday of November 2008 that they were going to vote for Obama’s opponent.

JBS (2d88a8) — 12/9/2011 @ 8:30 am

were going to vote for Obama’s opponent.
–in 2012.
I hit submit a little too quickly, as usual.

JBS (2d88a8) — 12/9/2011 @ 8:31 am

The media and blogs are focusing on Sensenbrenner’s impeachment comment and Holder’s broken “Have you no shame?” quote. Both are important, but I think Holder’s opening statement that no one “intentionally misled” Congress is equally important.

No one in the Bush Administration intentionally misled Congress about Iraq’s WMDs but that didn’t satisfy the Democrats. In the case of Iraq, information about WMDs was known only by the Iraq government — although foreign governments believed Iraq had WMDs and the Bush Administration agreed with their consensus. In Fast & Furious, the only government that actually knew what was going on was the Obama Administration.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:10 am

DRJ – What is the meaning of “is”

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:16 am

DRJ – They were not intending to lie about F&F, they were trying to be intentionally inaccurate. It’s a question of your state of mind or something?

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:20 am

From Holder’s opening statement:

“Soon after learning about the allegations raised by agents involved in Fast and Furious I took action designed to ensure accountability. In February I asked the department’s acting Inspector General to investigate the matter. And in early March I ordered that a directive be sent to law enforcement agents and prosecutors prohibiting such tactics.”

From a man who testified before Congress in May that he only learned the details of the operation a few weeks earlier, there appears to be some confusion between those dates and statements. Plus he claimed to have briefed Obama on the matter in February, I believe, which he could not do if he did not know the details.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:25 am

Since he qualified it as not having intentionally misled Congress, did they ask him why they unintentionally misled Congress? Any chance Holder might start reading his memos?

JD (554e77) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:28 am

I understood Holder’s defense to be: It’s a mistake. Move on, because mistakes happen. If so, Holder’s not arguing a state of mind defense. He’s saying it was unintentional and thus they have no culpability. It’s the Forrest Gump “It happens” defense.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:29 am

“He’s saying it was unintentional and thus they have no culpability. It’s the Forrest Gump “It happens” defense.”

DRJ – That may be what he’s throwing out there, but whether it holds water is a whole ‘nother matter.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:32 am

DRJ – Lanny Breuer admitted knowing the details of the operation in 2010, claims he did not inform Holder and expresses great regret over that. He received multiple drafts of the now retracted letter to Congress concerning Brian Terry’s death and ATF’s policy of not letting guns walk but can no longer remember if he looked at the drafts. Hmmmm.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:37 am

This Lanny Breuer:

Breuer earned that reputation representing President Bill Clinton during his 1998 impeachment trial.

How could we possibly doubt him, sarc.

narciso (87e966) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:43 am

Holder’s defense is that he’s too stupid and uninformed to be a liar.

It won’t fly.

SPQR (26be8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:54 am

He is plenty stupid, and apparently intentionally uninformed.

JD (554e77) — 12/9/2011 @ 9:57 am

“He is plenty stupid, and apparently intentionally uninformed.”

JD – Email at the DOJ is to warn people what not to read. It is their early warning system apparently. You put things in email you do not want people to read. Strange but true.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:18 am

Getting back to my point: In Fast & Furious, the only government that actually knew what was going on was the Obama Administration. Their defense is they didn’t know about their own operation. In what universe is that excuse acceptable, even if it’s true — and the only place it might be true is the movie Dumb and Dumber.

As SPQR said, “Holder’s defense is that he’s too stupid and uninformed to be a liar. It won’t fly.” The only caveat I have is that it shouldn’t fly.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:32 am

intentionally uninformed.

Comment by JD — 12/9/2011 @ 9:57 am

That’s how I read it too. You always see the candyass on those White House Dramas talk about plausible deniability, but rarely do you see a true believer in building that kind of defense so obviously employ it.

We’re talking about a serious freaking operation, and Holder is saying ‘well, we didn’t intentionally tell you completely wrong stuff… but yeah, that stuff we told you was totally wrong. Have you no shame?’

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:40 am

Getting back to my point: In Fast & Furious, the only government that actually knew what was going on was the Obama Administration. Their defense is they didn’t know about their own operation. In what universe is that excuse acceptable, even if it’s true — and the only place it might be true is the movie Dumb and Dumber.

Thread winner

JD (554e77) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:44 am

“Their defense is they didn’t know about their own operation. In what universe is that excuse acceptable, even if it’s true — and the only place it might be true is the movie Dumb and Dumber.”

DRJ – Exactly. We’re too incompetent to lie is not a great defense.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:52 am

The only humourous part of the hearing was from the Member from GA, Hank Johnson – he of ‘Guam is in danger of tipping over’ fame – when he announced that the entire F&F controversy was manufactured by the NRA/TEA Party.
An indication of the intellectual heft found within the Dem Caucus on The Hill, and within a great deal of the Progressive sphere at large.
Feel better now?

AD-RtR/OS! (a9c4a9) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:53 am

Each time these Bozos testify they dig the hole deeper. They just can’t see it themselves.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:56 am

Since mens rea has been excised from so much of criminal law, would it not be fair to treat it the same in this matter, and just respond to the AG that “intent” has nothing to do with what has happened vis-a-vis information that DoJ has supplied to Congress, but that the FACT that lies have been told is of itself a criminal act.

AD-RtR/OS! (a9c4a9) — 12/9/2011 @ 10:59 am

AD-RtR/OS! – I thought it was pretty good when Rocket Surgeon Sheila Jackson Lee tried to claim a point of parliamentary procedure to clarify who Jim Sensenbrenner was talking about when he raised the specter of impeachment and was shot down.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:00 am

You shouldn’t talk about the CongressMember from NASA in such a disparaging tone.
Even though both of their performances are about on the same level.

AD-RtR/OS! (a9c4a9) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:08 am

Since mens rea has been excised from so much of criminal law, would it not be fair to treat it the same in this matter, and just respond to the AG that “intent” has nothing to do with what has happened

If it were you or me who presided over something that killed hundreds of people and some federal agents, I’m pretty sure that is exactly what Holder would say.

Let alone if some Republican administration had presided over this disaster.

I cannot think of an instance of worse partisan bias than the media’s (most of it, anyway) low priority of covering this story.

We’re too incompetent to lie is not a great defense.

Comment by daleyrocks

That’s a great way to distill Holder’s defense. Do the folks out there understand the scale of the operation, or the scale of the results? Which is worse, that the guy who didn’t know there was an elephant in his living room is still running the DOJ, hence more disasters like this could be ongoing, or that he’s lying about his rather obvious awareness of this program?

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:13 am

AD,

As Sheila Jackson Lee might say, I have a Procedural Point: NASA is in Texas’ 22nd District that is currently represented by a Republican, Pete Olson. Meanwhile, Sheila Jackson Lee represents the uniquely designed 18th District that covers much of inner-city Houston.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:39 am

Although I realize your use of the term “NASA” was a response to daley’s very clever “Rocket Surgeon” and not really about NASA. I just like linking her gerrymandered district map.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:41 am

uniquely designed

Hahahahahahahahaha

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/9/2011 @ 11:41 am

Europe is greasing itself all over the pavement, completed by the end of March. Urkel is totally hosed, not a blame thing is working.

The Swedes plausibly showed yesterday the OBL situation room had OHB photoshopped in place.

Now Ciga, with Perlman and Stern aboard, got a no bid contract to provide a $465 Millon load of inefficacious smallpox vaccine.

There is just no end to the stink. Rush is wrong, 2 or 3 third parties can run and the GOP schmuck will still win.

gary gulrud (d88477) — 12/9/2011 @ 12:09 pm

==Sheila Jackson Lee represents the uniquely designed 18th District==

Oh, no way! This is Texas we’re talking about here. I was sure based on the snide critiques I regularly hear about our politics that only Chicago did sleazy gerrymandering stuff like that!

elissa (9d9d19) — 12/9/2011 @ 1:15 pm

“daley’s very clever “Rocket Surgeon””

Thanks, but I cannot take credit for that description. Another commenter here used that phrase to describe Rep. Lee, but I cannot remember who.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/9/2011 @ 1:19 pm

This is Texas we’re talking about here. I was sure based on the snide critiques I regularly hear about our politics that only Chicago did sleazy gerrymandering stuff like that!

Comment by elissa —

Sadly, no.

But if it helps, the district must be gerrymandered this way or the Federal Department Justice will intervene under section five of the voter’s rights act.

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/9/2011 @ 1:28 pm

Sheila Jackson Lee was the angry, overweight hippo in a scarf who always made sure she was there in front of the cameras to shake hands with GWB after each of his SOTU wingdings.

Colonel Haiku (687f10) — 12/9/2011 @ 2:01 pm

When Texas tries to fix her districts, Chicago guys interfere.

This kind of crap is why Texas is so systemically anti government. A reconstruction state that took a really long time and really, some really egregious democrats, to give Republicans a chance.

And Eric Holder is going to (I don’t recall this happening yet) offer ‘suggestions’ to Texas for how we should gerrymander to ‘protect’ the votes of special classes of people. Holder was an investigator for Blagojevich, but I don’t know that it’s fair to call him a Chicago guy, really.

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/9/2011 @ 2:09 pm

Well, since Ms. Lee is from the Greater Houston Area, I was exercising a small amount of editorial license in calling her the CongressMember from NASA.
I’ll bet they lobby her office when they need something, and she takes whatever photo-ops that might come her way down at the Johnson Center.

AD-RtR/OS! (a9c4a9) — 12/9/2011 @ 2:20 pm

This is going to be a problem for Obama next year.

Don’t worry, the press will run interference and spike the story as often as needed just as they have been doing for the last six months or whatever since the story broke.

Smock Puppet, Winner of the Jeane Dixon Award (aacc3d) — 12/9/2011 @ 3:54 pm

From the Houston Chronicle, court-drawn redistricting in Texas has been stayed:

The U.S. Supreme Court granted Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s emergency request to temporarily block the court drawn interim-redistricting maps …

This doesn’t mean the Texas Legislature’s redistricting will win on the merits but it may mean the Court is willing to look into it.

DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/9/2011 @ 5:51 pm

No one in the Bush Administration intentionally misled Congress about Iraq’s WMDs but that didn’t satisfy the Democrats. In the case of Iraq, information about WMDs was known only by the Iraq government

Actually all the evidence indicates that the Iraqis thought they had the WMDs too. They were probably just as surprised as we were that we didn’t find any. The only ones who knew there weren’t any weapons were those who had pocketed the money that was supposed to have been spent on them.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:01 pm

As Pfarrer’s account of the Bin Laden raid pointed out, the Wikileaks segment where such weapons were
smuggled out of Iraq, and used by AQ in many attacks.

narciso (87e966) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:13 pm

Holder is a treacherous shyster. 🙄

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:33 pm

Oh, no way! This is Texas we’re talking about here. I was sure based on the snide critiques I regularly hear about our politics that only Chicago did sleazy gerrymandering stuff like that!

Texas has its gerrymandering imposed on it by a federal court.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:35 pm

Remember how they went after Delay for the affrontery of it, until they were finally able to secure a conviction after a second time, to discourage others.

narciso (87e966) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:37 pm

So stopping tax cuts are now helping millionaires?

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:39 pm

I love how republicans who push for payroll tax cuts are villified but democraps doing the same thing are messiahs for the middle class.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:41 pm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072467/Obama-predicts-US-unemployment-drop-lowest-came-White-House.html

narciso (87e966) — 12/10/2011 @ 9:52 pm

🙄 What an egotistical bastard.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/10/2011 @ 10:25 pm

The only ones who knew there were not massive amounts of WMD in Iraq were the people who put them on trucks, drove them to Syria, and stockpiled them there.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/11/2011 @ 4:28 am

It makes sense that people who think they know what’s best for everybody else are arrogant and condescending. The embodiment of the sign that says, “Those of you who think they know everything annoy those of us who do. (And if you don’t get out of our way we will lock you up).

[The last line was previously found only in Russian.)

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/11/2011 @ 4:31 am

Capturing the absurdity and mendacity, requires certain skills

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/attorney_general_milo_minderbinder_comments.html#disqus_thread

narciso (87e966) — 12/11/2011 @ 4:49 am

Thanks for that link, narciso.

As a non-attorney I think it is funny how hard Holder works to weasel out of answering yes or no questions with a yes or no.

I take it such Congressional hearings operate a little different than a trial where the judge can say, “Just answer the question or I’ll charge you with contempt”.

I think that is one Congresswoman who would be happy to vote for impeachment and “get in line the night before” to get a position of responsibility in it.

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/11/2011 @ 9:07 am

I hope Holder pays.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/11/2011 @ 2:11 pm

12/9/2011

Video: Holder’s Fast and Furious Testimony

58 Responses to “Video: Holder’s Fast and Furious Testimony”

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