This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. Somewhere in the high reaches of the BATFE bureaucracy exists a man whose responsibility would have been to ask if someone was NUTS and put the kibosh on this nonsense.
I have absolutely no doubt someone (if not most of them) in the higher reaches knew about this long before it happened. Had any of those individuals been rational, intelligent, thinking human beings, they most certainly would have put the kibosh on this nonsense.
That none of them put the kibosh on the nonsense raises the question of which, or which combination, of qualifications are missing among the higher ups within the BATF? Is it rationality? Intelligence? The ability to think? Some combination thereof?
Applying Occam's Razor, the ONLY explanation for this is a DELIBERATE attempt to gin up support for severe anti-gun measures.
While the support aspect may very well be either an ancillary, a principle, or the only reason behind this debacle, another explanation is that the only ones who rise through the ranks of the BATF are those who've swallowed their "we're saving America by disarming everyone" mantra, hook line and sinker. As such, they may very well be intelligent, but they're not able to think well, nor do so rationally. Thus, their one-legged brains fall into pulling stupid stunts like Operation Fast and Furious.
The argle-bargle offered up during the Congressional inquest into this deadly farce only points all the more toward that solution.
I watched parts of it. It points to my theory of irrational group-think as well.
At a minimum, the House Oversight Committee needs to immediately draw up Articles of Impeachment for Eric Holder, Janet Neopalitano, FBI Director Mueller and whoever it is who is the clown running BATFE.
Clowns, and they would be ATF Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson and ATF Acting Deputy Director William J. Hoover. The agency's hell-bent stance against 2A rights isn't surprising, given the fact "Mr. Melson has been an adjunct professor at The George Washington University for over 30 years."
I've known exceedingly few (just four) university professors who openly supported 2A rights. At my own alma mater, Virginia Tech, such supporters included a professor in aerospace engineering who was a former USAF fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam conflicts, an American History professor who served in the Army during the same two conflicts, a gentleman with a doctorate in Physical Education who served in Vietnam, and a mechanical engineering professor who served in WWII and Korea.
There seems to be a common thread, here...
Many (dozens) of my professors, however, were openly against 2A rights.
And during the House part of the proceedings, the role of the Head Nincompoop In Charge should be examined. Thoroughly.
And after impeachment proceedings are successful, criminal charges (quite possibly including treason) should be brought.
Their actions wouldn't pass the Constitution's narrow definition of treason. Given their anti-Constitutional efforts, I do not agree either should be allowed to collect a penny of retirement, however.
The entire Executive Branch is absolutely raddled with nincompoops, malcontents, and traitors; borderline and otherwise. November 2012 may be too late. This is a cancer and it must be removed.
I was thumbing through my father's copy of Obama's book, "Change We Can Believe In." I love the following two points in the reviews:
"'Like Bill Clinton, he has the knack of weaving together the personal and the anecdotal with the political and the conceptual, so that each point seems both persuasive and commonsensical.' Guardian"
The key word there is "seems." Obama is a master at pulling the wool over people's eyes.
"The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is a defining moment in American history."
Provided the event is defining failure at a national level, I agree with this statement 100%.
Back to the OP...
But, as I say, according to the LAW, the law these people have little knowledge of and NO respect for what they do.
Agreed.
I'd go into a rant about the War Powers Act, but that's a subject for a different forum.
Perhaps, although both fall into the "abuse of authority" category. The only cure is to:
A. Know the law. This begins with the law of the land, our U.S. Constitution and its amendments.
B. Follow the law.
Whether or not either of the top two gents in the BATFE meet the first criterion, they most certainly have violated the second.