Yeah, I said it.  According to conventional wisdom, the “botched” operation by the ATF and DoJ known as “Fast and Furious” is, to all intents and purposes, a gigantic failure of Watergate scope and size.  The government broke its own laws to try and frame innocent American citizens in the crimes for a political agenda.  Top government officials, many of whom are appointees, are being investigated by Congress, calls for resignations are growing, and we’re uncovering more and more evidence that these people have all been lying to Congress to save their own hides.

And yet I find myself coming to the realization that the media is successfully doing the job of making sure that F&F is a smashing success for Obama and the gun control activists.

How, one might ask, can I think such a thing in the face of the looming political fallout where even Presidential Cabinet members are on the ropes?

Easy.

Regardless of the outcome, politically, for the individuals involved, the story is changing to reflect the PR position of the gun control crowd.

Let’s look at some of the coverage:

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57338546-10391695/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/

Exhibit B:

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: Thanks for staying with us. I’m Bill O’Reilly.

In “The Kelly File” segment tonight, the Justice Department on the defensive over the Fast and Furious investigation, as you know. And you may remember federal agencies under the supervision of Attorney General Eric Holder sent thousands of guns down to Mexico to try to track where they were going.

Well, the feds lost track of the guns, and a Border Patrol agent was killed because of the screw up…

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2011/12/07/justice-department-under-fire-over-fast-and-furious

Exhibit C:

The tactics are similar to those employed under Operation Fast and Furious, in which agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) monitored the sale of thousands of firearms in the Southwest region to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to study and dismantle their trafficking patterns.

But, agents have testified before Issa, the operation didn’t provide adequate surveillance of the weapons, allowing them to “walk,” only to be discovered later at crime scenes. Two guns solde under Fast and Furious were found last year at the murder scene of Border Patrol Brian Terry.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/197339-issa-expands-dea-probe-to-include-money-laundering

Grrrrrrr….  ARRGGHHH!  I’ve got to stop.  I’m going to snap and go ballistic if I keep seeing this same crap presented over and over and over again.

Damn it.

It’s almost enough to make you want to slap the fool out of Bill O’Reilly, and give his production team an extremely thorough cussing to boot.

Did you see the new Muppet’s movie?  I feel like Animal.  “Seeeelllllfffff Coooonnnttroolllll…”

Ask yourself a simple question:

How is this story being told?

Common wisdom states:  The government gave/sold a bunch of firearms to the Mexican Drug Cartels, lost them, and as a result, hundreds of Mexicans, and at least one American citizen, a Border Guard, have died.

Right?

That’s almost word for word what O’Reilly stated, isn’t it?

CBS stated it: “…it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.”

The Hill:

“…the operation didn’t provide adequate surveillance of the weapons, allowing them to “walk,” only to be discovered later at crime scenes.”

What is the reoccuring theme, people???

Face Palm!

It’s that the government lost track of a bunch of guns and as a result, hundreds, if not thousands, of people have died.

It’s apparently obvious that the anti-gun lobby’s intent is still going forward.  Even Bill O’Reilly is ranting on FoxNews about what happens when the government doesn’t keep tabs on firearms.

The collapse of the Fast and Furious operation is being used to cement that very idea in the minds of the public:  “The Government lost control of these guns and hundreds of people were killed.  Ergo, the Government needs to keep tighter control of the guns.”

The exposure of this operation by the GOP is being used to generate an exploitable crisis, and get even the right wing to say the government should’ve retained more control of the guns.

More control of the guns.

Over.

And over.

And over.

I cannot escape this ridiculous coverage template.  Drudge, Reason, Limbaugh, Beck, Fox News, I cannot go anywhere and hear someone talk about WHAT REALLY CAUSED THE DEATHS OF ALL THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE.

It wasn’t the guns.  It wasn’t the guns being loose on the streets.  It wasn’t that guns were loose on the streets with freaking criminals.  Guns DO NOT cause crime, they do NOT kill people, they are inanimate objects.  This has long been a position of the 2nd Amendment crowd, and now we’ve got Republicans in DC all over TV telling everyone about how these guns directly led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.  Regardless of the means by which it happened, it’s reinforcing the idea that more guns leads directly to more gun homicides, something that has the people at the Brady Center licking their chops, I promise you.

No, the narrative is all wrong.  It was that the US government, by dealing with the cartels, gave them a sense of legitimacy.  The very fact that the US Government was sending its agents to them for ANY reason other than to shoot them dead was correctly viewed as a sanction of their actions by the US Government.

The fact that the US Government was apparently supplying them with guns and laundering their drug money leads me to suspect that it gave the Mexican Drug cartels, who have been at war with the Mexican Government since 2006, slightly more than a simple sanction of their actions.

So what did they do when they felt that they had the support and sanction of the nation with the world’s largest military?  They stepped up their effort in the war with the Mexican Government.  They are guerrilla fighters, armed and supported by the United States of America’s government, in a fight for control of our nation’s next door neighbor.

The guns were of absolutely ZERO importance when you consider what caused the explosion of violence in Mexico.

Look:

What, there were 2000 guns leaked into Mexico?

Ask yourself:  Does the addition of 2000 guns equal an increase of 5000 murders per year for two years?

In other words, do you seriously believe that every gun “walked” into Mexico by the US Government was responsible for 5 murders a piece?

Of course not.  I’m sure many of them haven’t even been fired.  The increase in the number of deaths comes as a direct result of the US Government backing the drug cartels.  Not as a direct result of them “losing control of 2000 guns”.

The media is walking us right into the trap.  We’ve all known what the purpose of Operation Fast and Furious really was since the moment we heard about it, we’ve all sat around and discussed it for hours on end, and yet with all of that talk and discussion, we’re still waltzing right into the clutches of the anti-gun lobby and accepting the premise that the government need to maintain tighter control of the guns in the US.

It makes me want to cry.

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