Just Wondering...

Every so often, I see things on TV that make me wonder. For example, today I saw three different Democrats saying that the upcoming vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress was actually a subtle form of racism. I started wondering if it is possible to criticize a government official for incompetence and misdeeds without being called racist if that official happens to be black. It surely seems that the answer is no. Holder has managed to have his department oversee an operation that caused 2000 assault weapons to be delivered to the Mexican drug cartels. Supposedly, the guns were to be tracked, but that never worked and the assault weapons that went to Mexico were just lost. They turned up again at various crime sites in Mexico and the USA. One American border patrol agent was killed with one of the rifles, but about 200 Mexicans were also slaughtered with these weapons. As the casualties mounted, Holder's department just kept on with the program so that more and more weapons were sent to the cartels. To call the program crazy does not do it justice; it is incredibly stupid and whoever was in charge of it deserves to be held accountable. But if I criticize Holder for running the DOJ in a way that let this program continue, I guess it makes me racist because Holder is black.

In February of 2011, Holder's department sent a letter to Congress responding to questions from senator Grassley of Iowa. In that letter Holder's DOJ told Congress that the Justice Department had nothing to do with the operation that sent all those weapons to Mexico. Only the ATF was involved, not DOJ itself, or so Holder's department told Congress. Of course, that turned out not to be true. Indeed, about four months later, Holder's DOJ told Congress that the first letter was no longer operative. Instead, it turns out that Holder's DOJ did have oversight of the weapons operation. Somehow, DOJ got it wrong in the first letter. Congress asked for the documents to explain how it was that DOJ got it wrong, but Holder would not release them. Now, if I say that it is amazing that DOJ would mislead Congress by claiming not to be involved, I guess that is being racist since Holder is a black man. If I say that Congress has the need and the right to find out how DOJ could have mistated its involvement in this operation that led to the death of over 200 people, I guess that is being racist since Holder is a black man.

For a year, Congress has tried to get the relevant documents from DOJ. First, it asked for the documents but got no cooperation. So Congress then served a subpoena on the Justice Department which called for production of about 140,000 documents that pertain to the Fast and Furious operation and its aftermath. DOJ produced about 5% of what was requested. Congress tried and tried to get DOJ to produce the documents, but nothing more was forthcoming. Then, two weeks ago Eric Holder asked for a meeting and offered to produce a summary of the documents if Congress would drop any further investigation into the operation. The congressional representatives declined that offer and said that they would need to see the documents before they could decide whether or not to continue the investigation. Within hours, president Obama sent a letter to Congress claiming that the documents which had been sought for about a year were all subject to Executive privilege. Somehow, these documents which Holder was supposedly offering to summarize for Congress are now claimed to be privileged from disclosure. If I say that Holder could not have been offering in good faith to summarize the documents that are now supposedly privileged, I must be a racist since Holder is a black man. If I say that the claim of privilege is a ridiculous ploy since it was not asserted for a year and then it supposedly covered all of the thousands of documents that were sought, I must be a racist since Obama is also black.

The plain truth is this: 1) I am not a racist; 2) Eric Holder is incompetent; 3) Eric Holder has improperly withheld information from Congress; 4) DOJ lied to Congress in its initial letter and has never explained how that happened; 5) president Obama has no basis for claiming privilege for the documents and is only doing so to keep anything from coming out prior to the election; and 6) both Holder and Obama should be ashamed to hide behind charges of racism thrown out by their supporters. America is supposed to have moved beyond charges of racism; Obama's election was supposed to have been the key. Instead, the Democrats think that they can control the country by threatening to scream racism whenever they are criticized. They might as well cry "Wolf!" It will be just as effective.