Sheila Jackson Lee Blames Fast and Furious on Bush

Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) cemented her reputation as one of the dumbest people in Congress with this statement on C-SPAN concerning Fast and Furious and the Travails of Eric Holder. You see, it all goes back to Bush. He started it, and when Eric Holder found out about it, he stopped it.




Wrong again, Sheila. What she is referring to was an operation from the Bush era (Wide Receiver), in which tracking devices were put on suspect weapons that were being sold, surveillance was continued, and the Mexican police were involved on the other side of the border. When ATF learned that several weapons had managed to elude surveillance and cross the border anyway, the operation was halted.

Then in 2009, under Obama, came Gun Runner, which morphed into Fast and Furious. No tracking devices were put on guns. Only the serial numbers were recorded. Once the guns were sold, they were freely allowed to "walk" into Mexico with no interdiction. The Mexican police were not involved or even aware.  The next time such guns were encountered was when they had been left at the scenes of shootings in Mexico and the US. That was the tracing referred to by Secretary Napolitano at that press conference (just posted) in March 2009.

And what was to be gained by such "tracking"? Statistics that would buttress the Obama administration's claim that 90% of the guns in the hands of the Mexican cartels came from the US.

And what could be gained from that, pray tell?

Tighter gun control, which was a known desire of both Obama and Eric Holder.

Nice try, Sheila.