Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Hearing. The Gunwalker Conspiracy Cover-Up's Dog and Pony Show. Holder's body language to Grassley: "You don't scare me, you old fart."


Dog and pony show is a colloquial term previously used in the United States in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to refer to small traveling circuses that toured through small towns and rural areas. The name derives from the common use of performing dogs and ponies as the main attractions of the events.

Performances were generally held in open-air arenas, such as race tracks or public spaces in localities that were too small or remote to attract larger, more elaborate performers or performances. By the latter part of the 20th century, the original meaning of the term had largely been lost.

The term has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political, or less often, commercial ends. -- Wikipedia.


On an entirely unrelated topic, my favorite rifle is a customized Polytech M14S in 7.62 NATO. I call her, affectionately, my "China Doll."

Why is it that every time I see Chucky Schumer talking on camera, I remember that it has been too long since I did a thorough routine maintenance on my China Doll? Curious. Even if I did it last week. Hard to explain.

I've taken a little time to review the hearing (we recorded it), fast forwarding through the has-been non-entities like Orrin Hatch (who asked not ONE Gunwalker question as far as I know). Why, oh why, doesn't Utah retire this thoroughly compromised and compromising perfumed prince of the Mandarin class? What a waste of oxygen. He used to be something, back before electricity in the Reagan years. Accent on "used to be."


Gunwalker Conspiracy sideman Orrin Hatch, playing "The Sounds of Silence" at the Democrats' dog and pony show hearing yesterday.

As I was moving about during the day (even in the middle of the doctor's visit) I was getting briefings by cell phone from friends on what was happening. From what was reported and what I've seen, here are my impressions.

Grassley, bless his heart, is no Perry Mason. And given the exchange between him and Holder, when the Attorney General objected to Grassley raising a subject that Holder thought Grassley had promised to keep secret, he is entirely too accommodating to the Senate Boys' Club rules for my liking.

He did a good job, within the limitations of time, but it was obvious from Holder's bored expression and body language while Grassley was talking that the cover-up artist was thinking, "You don't scare me, you old fart. Just get the political theater over and I'll go back to committing felonies under color of law."



Senator Cornyn of Texas was more animated in his examination and his staff's graphic (see below) was the hit of the Gunwalker scandal writers -- everybody wanted a copy of it.



The Demoncrats (my father's term) accomplished everything they needed to with this hearing, which was the entire point that they put it on. If Holder was going to be grilled next month by the House, it was better to put him out there this month in the friendliest setting they could to keep the triple cover-up memes rolling:

1. We didn't know nothin', Senator. It was all Phoenix's fault.

2. It happened because we need more gun control. (Sort of like the captain of the Titanic lobbying for more speed, greater iceberg propagation and fewer lookouts on duty, ain't it?)

3. In any case, George W. Bush did it, so shut up about it, thank you very much.

Yet, as Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review, commented, Cornyn did a pretty good job of debunking that one:

By the time Cornyn was done drawing this stark contrast between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious, Holder was reduced to conceding, “I’m not trying to equate the two.” That is big of him given that the two cannot be equated. But the attorney general seemed fine with the effort to equate them — to make them one and the same — when it was Schumer asking the questions. Expect the effort to continue. “Bush did it” may be a tired defense, and in this instance a preposterous one, but it’s the one the Democratic base loves to hear.


But of course, it is not the Democrat base that was the audience for this but rather the largely uninformed curious folks who would see what the cover-up artists wanted them to see when they watched the sound bites of topics One, Two and Three above in the media.

In this they were successful.

And yet.

And yet, as a retired Marine friend of mine reminded me last evening, "This isn't a sprint, Mike, it's a marathon." Grassley, he believes, knows exactly what he is doing. Another fellow, closer to the investigation, believes Issa has all the documents he needs to destroy the cover-up.

The question is, will he? Is the GOP, and Issa and Grassley specifically, in this deadly game to win, or just to be on the field?

The committee investigators believe -- indeed, I am told they are certain -- that they have plenty to seek an indictment of "Gunwalker Bill" Newell for perjury. Newell, last reported periodically haunting the corridors of ATF Phoenix like Banquo's ghost, cannot be pleased that the ENTIRE weight of the Obama administration APPEARS (important distinction) to be on his weary, gunwalking head. "Blame Phoenix" means "Blame Newell," first and foremost. He has got to be one scared rabbit right about now.

Yet we know that he met with Kevin O'Reilly and others in the White House in March of 2009. Two thousand and NINE, folks. Surely that is a bargaining chip he has in his pocket. And what of O'Reilly, so quickly stashed away from Senator Grassley when it became evident that Hillary's man at the National Security Council might be grilled about that meeting and other topics?

Have the international airlines all been grounded? Do they not still work both ways? Are Grassley and Issa aware that the aviation industry stands ready to fly one of their investigators to Baghdad, should they discover the cojones to but issue the order?

I say, charge Newell with perjury and convince the conspirators that the committee is serious. If they do so, it will be interesting to see how a simple show of authority by Issa, et. al, motivates the rest of the conspirators to sing like canaries.

Because right now most of them, like Holder, are sitting there with bored expressions on their faces thinking, "You putzes don't scare me."

10 comments:

Aiken Patriot said...

Schumer really hammered on the Bush did it too thing and kept bringing up memos and briefings directed to direct reports of the Bush AJ - with the point that if his direct reports knew, don't you think he did and maybe it even went higher. This is exactly the point that nabs Holder and BO.
Also, Holder kept saying what he didn't do: read the memo, review the wiretaps, review the briefings. What does this man do with his time??????

Anonymous said...

At the May 3, 2011 Oversight Committee hearing, Darrell Issa asks Eric Holder “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?”

Holder replies, “I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS.”

Here "few" is used to designate a comparative number. Eric Holder employs it as a weasel word to avoid admitting that he knew about "Gunwalker" no later than July of 2010, and probably much sooner than that.

For example, "Gunwalker Bill" Newell: "I can't recall all the guns I walked BUT I'VE WALKED A FEW." As Newell (and by extension, Holder) employs the term, "few" can encompass thousands.

Holder may imagine that using vague and imprecise terminology allows him to escape having to give an account for the events of December 14, 2010. To the contrary, "few" can easily include the weeks preceding the AAG briefing of April 2010.

Holder is held fast in a trap of his own making. Will the weasel be released or "skun out" and his hide tacked to the shed wall?

MALTHUS

Ashrak said...

The starkest admission I think was when Holder said that no roving wiretaps were a part of GunWalker. That defies common sense IF IF IF the goal was to track guns that even they admit they thought were going across the border to Mexican cartels.

The idiocy abounds.

Second most important was Holder saying squarely that he was NOT trying to equate Wide Receiver and GunWalker.

As I watched the "hearing" I jotted some notes and thoughts. I posted them here -

http://newsbusters.org/gunwalker.html

bondmen said...

If this scandal had been under the Clinton's when they were in the White House, there would already be dead bodies piling up in various and sundry places. Bodies of both participants and witnesses. Why no bodies yet? No unexplained accidents either or suicides. What's up with the huge lack of suspense and drama? No fear of CONgress possibly? No worries CONgress will get to the dirty bottom of all this?

Mil-Tech Bard said...

At least Sen Cornyn seems to know he is from Texas.

Where is House Reppublican Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) on this?

Mt Top Patriot said...

Could be they really don't care what anyone thinks about how corrupt and lawless they are.
Could be they do not fear redress for the treason they have systematically committed.
Could be they are all pretty confident, because they are ready anytime to pull the plug on our Constitutional Republic.
Could be so, because it seems to me they have pre-position all of the instruments of full blown tyranny. Regardless of whether 2012 is a full blown rout by the American people or not.
Obama gets elected, our obama gets installed, vote fraud, Marshal Law, take your pick, either way it is going to happen.
This is how they think.
I think one thing you can assume, these guys are so dirty, so deep into their treason, there is just no way they can surrender or come clean.
Ain't gonna happen.
It is just theater of the absurd.
The fact that Issa and Grassly have feet of clay speaks volumes.
That in an entire system of checks and balances designed specifically to deal with just this kind of tyranny from within, all that has been accomplished of value and substance is these dog and pony shows?
Mike is right, better clean your M1A.
The vote it represents is all that stands in the way of these psychopaths.

Something very fishy here if you asked me. People like Holder and obama have something very deeply wrong within them. Like all the signs and trappings of life long usurpers/dictators in waiting.
As purveyors of undermining and overthrowing The United States of America, destroying from the inside out the fabric of our society. This is basically all they have been involved in their entire adult lives.

Thing is Gunwalker is a heinous breech of the very substance of what holds our civilization together.
Rule of Law.
It represents in a nutshell how bad these people are. Supplant the Rule of Law with the rule of men. It represents how ideologically driven they are in their goal of destroying Liberty. Gunwalker is nothing but a very useful instrument used on the way to tyranny.
It is clear people like obama and holder have much bigger fish to fry. Like an entire system of government and its sovereign, we the people.

What a coupe that would be!
After 230 years, over two centuries, these are the ones who did what no other could do.
Bring her to her knees, destroy America.

Gunwalker is the tip of the iceberg.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry Mike but I think the mexian or cuban version of the proverbial "Dog and Pony Show" apply much better to what going on in the nation these days just on a larger scale..

Yank lll

bubba said...

The democrats have no idea that they are the ones who are going to give the signal. They don't even know what the signal is.

Anonymous said...

What gets me about Shrumer's angle on comparing this to Bush's administration is......
A) He's saying two wrongs make a right?

B) At least Bush's AG ADMITTED knowing about it.

HOLDER LIED AND PEOPLE DIED

Anonymous said...

"On an entirely unrelated topic, my favorite rifle is a customized Polytech M14S in 7.62 NATO. I
call her, affectionately, my 'China Doll.'"

Chuckle ... that's what happens naturally when you suffer "organ" failure.