Congress should focus on firearms flow to Mexico

In 2006, when George W. Bush was president, federal law enforcement officials came up with a spectacularly dumb idea: Allow powerful firearms purchased in the United States to “walk” across the Mexico border, where authorities would trace the weapons and eventually nab the big-time criminals who supply guns to the ultra-violent Mexican drug cartels.

It is no surprise that most of the weapons promptly disappeared.

But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, undeterred by failure, went back to the “gun-walking” technique again the following year -- and used it once more in 2009, after President Obama had taken office, in the tragic fiasco known as Operation Fast and Furious.

These are the facts, and they don’t cover any Justice Department officials with glory. But neither do they remotely justify the partisan witch hunt by House Republicans who threaten, without legitimate cause, to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Obama has responded by asserting executive privilege — effectively shutting down the inquisition.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120623/OPINION05/306230007/Eugene-Robinson-Congress-should-focus-firearms-flow-Mexico